The Road Home
by FernWithy
Summary: In the year following Miguel's eventful Day of the Dead, the family in both the land of the living and the land of the dead has to come to terms with what happened so long ago.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

_December 28, 2017.__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
I don't know if this will work or not, but I miss having you to talk to. I saw a lot of offerings when I was where you are now, so they must make it over somehow. Maybe a letter will make it all the way to you from the ofrenda next year, with all the words in it. I'll just keep writing to you, if it's okay, and I'll leave you all of them on the ofrenda. You don't have to read them all on Día de los Muertos - at least I don't think you do - just take them. You can read them after the holiday, so it's like getting to spend more time together, even if I won't know it._

_It's been almost three weeks since you left. I played for you as long as I could. I don't know if you heard or not. I played while Mamá Elena and Tía Gloria and Tía Carmen and Mamá and even Rosa got you ready for your trip. I had my back turned until they put the cover over you, of course, but I kept playing until Papá made me stop because my fingers were bleeding. I couldn't sing, though. I kept crying. I knew you were all right - I guess I know it better than anyone now - and I hope that Papá Héctor was giving you a big hug and you were all dancing, but I knew I was going to miss you, and I really do. It turns out that I can talk to Papá, but it's not the same._

_Christmas was quiet. Tío Berto got instruments for Rosa and Abel, and lessons too. Rosa wanted a violin. It turns out that when she was visiting her friend Mercedes, she was playing around on one. She's practicing now. I think she'll be good. Tell Papá Héctor that I'm not his only musician. Abel got an accordion, but he looks a little afraid of it. I don't know if he'll be good at it or not. We sang songs this year for Christmas. It was the first time for most of us! Mamá Elena has a pretty voice! But it's Papá who's really good. I hope I sound like him when my voice goes down._

_It's strange, everyone knowing about me playing the guitar. I don't know if they believe me or not about what happened on Día de los Muertos. Rosa listened to me talking about it, and dared me to stand up in the plaza, give a grito, and just start singing "Poco Loco," if I really did it before. When I feel more like being happy, maybe I will. I'll sing it for Papá Héctor._

_I hope you're feeling better now than you were when you left, and that you're having a good time being with Papá Julio again, and your parents, and the uncles, and Tía Victoria. I hope you sang Christmas songs, too, and Papá Héctor played for you._

_Love to everyone,  
Miguel_

The children were all finally asleep, even Abel, who usually seemed to think it was his personal duty to guide the first few hours of every day through their routines. Berto and Carmen were working in Mamá Coco's room, which, at her request, was being turned into a music practice room for the children. Mamá wasn't entirely sure about this, but she was a good daughter, and would never break a promise she'd made to her mother. She was getting used to the sounds of singing and playing now, and Enrique had even caught her humming to herself the day after Christmas. "You sing very well, Mamá," he told her, but all she'd said was, "Pffft."

Luisa was in her rocking chair by the bed, the red cloth she was working on falling gently over her raised belly. She was sewing by hand, partly because the sewing machine was too noisy to keep anything secret. Mostly, Enrique thought that she just believed that love could not be added to clothes if they went through too many gears and engines on the way.

"Miguel is asleep?" she asked.

Enrique nodded, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking off his shoes. "He was at the desk. He was so tired he didn't even wake up when I moved him and tucked him in. He's got a letter to Mamá Coco there. In a sealed envelope - I don't know what it's about."

"Oh, I told him to try it. He misses her. I thought he might like to be able to tell her about his day, just like he used to. That's all. He hasn't been himself since… well, really since Día de Muertos. I'm worried."

"So am I." He didn't elaborate. They'd been through it more than once. Miguel had always been a loving child, but since Día de Muertos, he seemed almost afraid to leave the house, leaving for school only after checking on everyone, and rushing home to the workshop, where he spent part of the afternoon making shoes, and part playing his guitar for the family while they worked. The latter had been Enrique's idea, largely because Miguel seemed bereft without a guitar in his hands, but bewildered if the family wasn't in his line of sight. It wasn't right for a twelve-year-old boy. Enrique hoped it was just his mourning period, but… He sighed. "It's a good idea. He could always talk to Mamá Coco. So could I."

"I told him maybe he could leave his letters on the ofrenda next year. From what he said, I think it should work."

"You believe him completely."

"So do you. He wasn't sleeping in the mausoleum. I checked it. You checked it. A dozen times. I saw the guitar on the floor. And the petals. You saw them, too."

"I did."

"So, they were kicked apart to right in the middle. Then the kicking stopped. The petals were scattered in a single direction, so he didn't double back. It wouldn't be Miguel's style to set the scene like that."

"Yes, but…"

"And he didn't come back saying that he'd proved de la Cruz was your bisabuelo. He came back hating someone he used to idolize."

"Yes…"

"_And…_" she prodded, looking up over the pile of fabric.

Enrique sighed. "And the name checked out. There was no way to have pulled that name out of nowhere. And he said it before he even saw the letters to Mamá Imelda that were signed 'Héctor,' so he couldn't have found it and then added it to his story. And if he _had_ seen them before, he wouldn't have been going on about de la Cruz the day before. I know. I do know. And he's not a liar or a storyteller. But it's a strange thing to think about."

"I guess I don't really think of it that way. Comes of being a gravedigger's daughter. Papá always talked about them like they were just around the corner somewhere, so we had to keep their places clean for them, and make them good paths."

"Not a bad way to think of it." He smiled. "I keep expecting your papá to ask how we kept getting into the mausoleum. That other one - his partner…?"

"Mauricio."

"Mauricio. He swears he locked it, and he hasn't gotten in trouble, so…"

"Do you really think Papá doesn't know I made a copy of the key?" Luisa rolled her eyes. "For that matter, do you really think the lock that was usually on that mausoleum was flimsy enough for Mamá Coco to pick with a hairpin every year?"

"Wait… he knew about that?"

"He knew _someone_ was tuning that guitar. Why do you think I snuck out there the morning I met you? I wanted to know who it was."

"But you didn't turn us in."

"You're lucky. You were far too handsome to turn in." She blew him a kiss and winked.

Enrique blushed. After thirteen years of marriage, he supposed that he shouldn't do so every time she flirted anymore, but she was still beautiful, and still scandalously young for him, and he loved every moment of being her husband. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

She patted her belly. "We're fine." She went back to her stitching. "I'm leaving a good bit of room," she said, raising the sleeve of the jacket. It would be a surprise for Miguel's thirteenth birthday in a few months. "I think I'll need to let it out pretty often. He's growing so fast."

"Yes."

She stitched a bit further down the seam. "I contacted that professor in Mexico City. The one Rosa's violin teacher told you about."

"Miguel doesn't want to go to the capital." Enrique smiled. "They said he'd never be a great musician without a better teacher than he can find here. He said he'd rather be a good son than great musician."

"I know. You've told that story every day since the meeting."

"Well, I like having a good son. Who will be a good man. But who could also be a great musician. I feel guilty keeping him here."

"You're not keeping him. He's staying on his own." She reached the end of her seam, tied off her thread, and bit it off near the end. "But it is nearly two thousand eighteen, mi amor. It occurred to me that it doesn't need to be a choice."

"I don't understand."

"I explained to Professor Moreno what the teachers said - about how he was already at their top level for students. I sent him that video that we made for Mamá Coco - "

"The one Miguel _didn't_ want Abel to put up?"

"I didn't make it public anywhere."

Enrique nodded an apology for thinking otherwise. Miguel had been horrified when Abel suggested putting up a private video - made so Mamá Coco could listen to him all day, even when he had to be in school, so she wouldn't have to live one single moment more without music - for the public to see. "Of course. I'm sorry. What did the professor say?"

"That Miguel has a gift and we should be careful that he doesn't throw it away. He didn't believe at first when I told him that we never got him a single lesson, that it was all from watching movies." She sighed, turned the red jacket around, and started on the other sleeve. "Anyway, the professor is looking for someone who might be willing to teach him remotely. On the internet. So… I was looking for a faster connection. We can afford it. We could find him a good teacher. Not just for playing. He can learn that on his own. But for theory and songwriting and history and different kinds of music and… and just for pushing him harder than anyone can push him around here. He says there are required recitals, but they could make arrangements for him to do them in the plaza. Maybe someone would even drive down to do an evaluation." She bit her lip. "What do you think?"

"That I'm a very smart man to have married such a smart woman."

Luisa rolled her eyes. "You may need to take him up to the capital for a few days. I think it's not a good idea for me to travel _just_ now."

"I'm sure it can all wait until after the baby is born."

"The baby is due in a month. I want…" She sighed. "I want to do something special for Miguel before then. It's going to be hard afterward. I'm likely to be sick, like I was before, and the baby will take a lot of time. I just want Miguel to feel… he went through something. I don't want him to feel like we're so focused on the baby that we don't understand what's happening with him."

"He knows, Luisa. He knows the road we've traveled to get this far. He's been on it with us."

"Take him to the capital, Enrique. Make a fuss over him for his music. Talk to him about yourself. And your papa, and your grandfather, and all of his fathers. I think it will mean more to him now than it used to."

It was already decided, that much was clear, so Enrique nodded. "What do we need to take him for? When do we need to take him?"

"I didn't arrange the trip!" She shook her head. "You'll need to chat with Moreno… you know how to do that, don't you?"

"Yes, that much I know."

"He says that he wants to talk to Miguel about what he wants to study, and what's available to him. And he'll want to hear him play live, to see how he does. They have courses that he might be able to take, even though he's not old enough for real college work. And there are also ones that he wouldn't be able to take - group improvisation is one he brought up - because he wouldn't be there with the other students."

"I don't know how well I like the idea of him spending a great deal of time with adult musicians, anyway. At least not ones I haven't vetted personally."

"Which is the other reason I want you to go."

"All right. I'll talk to Moreno tomorrow, and see when Miguel and I can visit."

Luisa nodded and looked back down at her sewing, her sign that she intended to stay where she was and not come right to bed. Enrique rolled over, pulled the covers over himself, and was asleep long before her light went out.

The next morning, he found Miguel in the practice room. He had a new guitar, a kind of bland, commercially produced one that had been easily available the day after Mamá Coco's funeral. Papá Héctor's guitar was back in de la Cruz's crypt. This wasn't something they talked about. The historical society had allowed Miguel to keep it while Mamá Coco was alive, but it had been a fight Enrique had fought with them every day for a month. They'd wanted to arrest Miguel for theft until the alcalde herself had intervened and promised them a hearing on the subject.

Miguel was just noodling at the moment, not really practicing. It was a kind of soft, improvised ranchera tune. It was nice, but his heart wasn't in it. He stopped playing when he noticed Enrique. His eyes, which had dark circles under them, locked onto Enrique and followed him, the way they tended to whenever he was at home, as if the people he loved might disappear if he let go of some invisible line.

"Mijo," Enrique said, and couldn't follow it up. He just put a hand on Miguel's shoulder.

Miguel leaned over the guitar, into a kind of loose half-embrace. "I'm okay, Papá," he said.

"We'll get Papá Héctor's guitar back."

"How?" Miguel put the new guitar down. "They don't believe me."

"The hearing's at the end of March. We'll find proof."

"We have the letters. We have the picture."

"And that's why we have the hearing. Because our case has merit."

"But de la Cruz…"

"It's a long shot," Enrique admitted. "Even if we can prove he stole the guitar, rather than Héctor just giving it to him."

"Either way isn't what he _said_ the story was."

"Oh, we can prove he's a complete liar, we have enough for that."

"What else do we need? He _said_ he did it!"

"He said it during a visit to the land of the dead that you didn't exactly make a videorecording of." Enrique held up a hand. "I believe. We all do, even Rosa, and she's the biggest skeptic in the family. But believing and proving are different things."

Miguel frowned and set down the guitar. "But we could start with what we know." He stood up and went to the window, the same place he'd been when he played for Mamá Coco. He seemed to gravitate to the spot when he was here, probably because it had always been his spot with her. Enrique didn't think he even noticed how often he inhabited this exact space. "There has to be something that proves it. If we could find Papá Héctor's song book…"

"I doubt de la Cruz would keep something that incriminating."

"Pfft," Miguel snorted. "He kept the guitar and had it on all of his album covers. And he put the murder in a movie. I'll bet it's somewhere. Probably with a spotlight on it. Isn't there a museum at the studio?"

"Yes…"

"In the capital! And that's where he…" Miguel cast his eyes down. "That's where it happened."

"Are you sure?"

"That's where the typewriter letters start. I bet someone good at it could tell the signature was forged after that."

"Worth looking into. I've been thinking about hiring a detective. Maybe they'd know about handwriting experts." Enrique shrugged. "And since we're on the subject - obliquely, anyway - Mamá and I have been talking about the capital…" He told Miguel about Luisa's idea.

"I could… really?" The corner of Miguel's mouth twitched and then, miraculously, there was a smile on his face. "That would be perfect!"

"I'll make the appointment, then. And we'll go up to the capital."

"And see the museum. And…" His eyes went wide. "Papá! We could go to the police! We could find out if they had anyone who died and they didn't know why back in 1921. Maybe they'd even know where Papá Héctor _is_. And we could bring him home to Mamá Coco and Mamá Imelda! And maybe they would know there was poison, only they didn't know who he was and -"

"Miguel, one thing at a time."

"I know."

"And there may not be anything to find. There was… it was pretty violent for a while. One body could easily get lost."

"Okay."

"Meanwhile, there _is_ a land of the living, believe it or not, and in that land, you might want to get a couple of songs ready to audition with. The National Conservatory doesn't take just anyone."

Miguel made an exaggerated face, nibbling theatrically on his fingernails. It warmed Enrique's heart to see him do something so playful. He reached across and ruffled his son's hair, then stood and kissed his head.

"Go on," he said. "Pick your favorites, and practice. I'll make arrangements."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two  
**

_Solo quería escuchar tu voz,  
pero lo perdí en el clamor.  
Solo quería darte todo,  
pero entonces perdí tu amor _

_(I only wanted to hear your voice  
__But I lost it far above  
I only wanted to give you everything  
But then I lost your love)  
_  
The dead had no particular need to sleep.

They didn't have any need to eat, either, and Héctor had fallen out of the habit over the last few decades, but most did so anyway. It was nothing like the sumptuous piles of food from the world of the living that appeared on Día de Muertos, but food seemed to just appear when it was needed, at least for the well-remembered. Héctor wasn't sure where it came from, or why it made a difference how people remembered you on an average Tuesday. Julio, with whom he'd had many strangely pleasant conversations on the subject over the last two months, thought that the dead might create these things for themselves, but as they were forgotten, more and more of their energy was used up imagining their bodies holding together, since there was no one in the living world to imagine that for them. As to where the food went after they swallowed it, neither of them had wanted to speculate. Héctor enjoyed the reappearance of food in his life too much to think about it too closely.

Shelter wasn't necessary, either, as there was no real weather here. It was consistently pleasant and peaceful, even in the middle of the city. But everyone seemed to need a place, and places… appeared. The big public buildings were ones from the land of the living that had been torn down or destroyed, and so were some of the residences. But the apartment blocks, hotels, and even some sprawling single-home neighborhoods seemed to simply generate units when they were needed. No one paid rent, and it was taken for granted by most newcomers. Héctor, on the other hand, had not had the energy to imagine a home for himself for years, if that was how it worked. He'd found no open doors to empty rooms, no keys, no little shacks or big mansions. He'd just been squatting at the base of a pyramid in Los Olvidados since the mid-1980s. ("When I crossed over," Victoria had realized. "Mamá must have been thinking more about me.")

But sleep.

Sleep was a strange thing here. Everyone seemed to retire to their private spaces at night, and possibly to rest themselves and gather their strength. The forgotten often made themselves nests and didn't move around much, because they were losing their cohesion. (Héctor had not wanted to be like that, which was why he'd left the neighborhood as often as he could, trying to stay in touch with Ceci and even the unpleasant Gustavo.) It was a _kind_ of sleep. When there was something happening at night, like Día de Muertos celebrations, no one bothered at all.

All of which was to say, Héctor had not really considered the fact that he had no bed here, and hadn't had one for decades, until Imelda, not quite meeting his eyes on his first night back with the family, had asked him if he meant to sleep here, because "I don't think… yet… I…"

Surprised that the issue was even up for future debate, Héctor had made a quick joke about his blushing bride, and she'd rolled her eyes and said he was younger than her grandchildren now. But the issue was out there, and had been for some time. Rather than discussing it, Imelda seemed to have decided to avoid the issue by staying up all the time, usually talking to Héctor in the workshop after everyone else retired to their places. She'd made him a good pair of shoes (like food and shelter, materials seemed to just appear), and she was trying to teach him to join her business. He was trying to learn. He wanted to be part of his family again.

Unfortunately, he had never had her particular talent with crafts. In two months, he'd managed to make three pairs of simple chanclas, and one of them had fallen apart two days after Christmas.

"Papá," Coco said, looking at them ruefully, "I think this might not be your calling."

"It's just possible."

She grinned and squeezed his shoulders in a careful hug. She wasn't used to maneuvering around as a skeleton yet, and was as overcautious as most new arrivals. "Don't worry. My first few pairs were just as bad."

"They were?"

"Yes. Of course, I was six."

Héctor sighed dramatically. "You don't respect me!"

"Don't joke about that," she said, leaning over and kissing his cheek. "Never that."

"As a shoemaker."

"I have no judgment of you as a shoemaker. Because you aren't a shoemaker. You're quite good at making shoes, for a musician. They held together for almost three weeks."

"And the others are still together," Julio said. "I think you were a little distracted with that pair. I think most of the shoes we made the week Coco came to us show some distraction."

"Even Imelda had to throw away a pair." Oscar unfurled a new roll of leather. "It's not every day our one hundred year old little girl joins us, after all."

Héctor didn't join in, even though the conversation was mostly for his benefit. He gave Coco's hand a squeeze, and she returned it gratefully. Like most people when they first crossed over, she was still mourning the living world. She put on a strong face, and she was genuinely happy to be with her husband and daughter again, but Héctor had seen the way she had pasted pictures up all over the music room that had appeared upstairs, on the family's shared level. She hadn't been sure they would make the crossing with her, but like his own photo, they had been with her in the physical world when she died. Her granddaughter, Gloria, had made a packet of them and was holding it to her hand, and it was still there when she found herself on the wispy marigold bridge. She'd told Héctor the story during the long hours they'd spent re-making one another's acquaintance. Héctor had found, to his delight, that he adored her as much as an elderly woman as he had when she was a four year old girl. She seemed not to mind his presence much, either.

At any rate, while the others had mostly forgotten the pain of mourning the living - they had long since accustomed themselves to only having yearly visits - and just treated her coming as a celebration, Héctor understood how she was feeling. He had never had the visits, and had spent the last century desperate to cross back over, just to see the person he'd left behind. In Coco's case, it was mainly her great-grandchildren, who she was afraid she'd never see grow up. Especially Miguel, who, she admitted, had been her special favorite. "Since he was a baby," she told Héctor. "I sang to him when no one was looking, and he was practically dancing in my arms."

"He's a good boy. I hope I'll be able to see him, but we lost my picture."

She'd smiled. "Oh, Papá. _I_ never lost your picture. I gave it to Miguel, and he'll see that it's on the ofrenda. I promise."

Somewhere between them was the question of why she hadn't put it up herself, even after Imelda passed over, but Héctor didn't have a burning need for the answer, and when she tried to start apologizing, he just held up his hand and shook his head. He didn't want any sadness or regret from Coco. He just wanted her back in his life.

She studied the broken chancla. "Maybe I should keep it in my purse. Elena always found them very useful."

"Elena started in with the chancla?" Victoria came in from the kitchen, bearing plates of the food that had appeared for dessert. She tutted a little. "She used to hate that when Mamá Imelda did it."

"Elena is a master of the chancla," Coco said. "A disciplinary artist. She is the head of the house." She looked at Héctor. "I never minded taking a back seat to my daughter. She had definite ideas of how to run the family. And she made me smile."

"Mamá, you shouldn't have let her push you around."

Coco caught Héctor's gaze and they both laughed. There was no sense being unhappy with the forces of nature that surrounded them. Better to let the wind blow through its course, and to bend with it. If shelter was needed, it was easier to provide it - to the Elenas and Victorias and Imeldas of the world as much as anyone else - if you weren't too busy blustering around yourself.

"Gloria and Enrique are more like us," she said. "Of course, Miguel…"

"Yes, we all met Miguel," Oscar said. "Or, as we like to think of him, Imelda in blue jeans."

The shop door opened, and Imelda came in with drinks. Sangria. Never tequila now, Héctor had noticed, though she'd drunk as much of it as he had once. For all he knew, this abstinence dated from finding out how he'd been poisoned. He hadn't asked.

She set down the tray and passed them out. "Are we having a laugh at my expense?"

"At Miguel's," Julio said.

"Why do I not believe you?" She sat down at her well-worn work station and examined a pile of orders.

"Part of it is Papá's expense," Coco said, holding up the chancla.

Imelda looked at the broken shoe and sighed. "No worries," she said. "We can salvage the parts. Here, Héctor. I'll show you where the problem is."

He sat down beside her gratefully, and tried to follow her lesson on proper stitching. Everyone else drank their sangria and finished up their daily projects. Coco and Julio went up to their rooms on the fourth floor, and the twins disappeared to the third. Victoria, a spinster who shared her space with her spinster aunt, Rosita, was the last to retire.

Imelda had found the weakness in the chancla - in a piece of leather that looked the same as every other piece to Héctor - and was shoring it up to restitch and create a new shoe from the wreck. Everyone gave her a kiss as they headed upstairs. It was all very matter-of-fact, and Héctor loved it.

She looked down at the shoe. "You don't have to be a shoemaker, Héctor," she said. "I've spent enough time forcing people to be shoemakers."

"No one seems to mind."

"Except Miguel. He said I was ruining his life."

"Miguel is twelve. He probably thinks his mamá is ruining his life when she tells him to eat vegetables before dessert."

"You know it's not that."

Héctor nodded. "I do. But you have to stop doing this to yourself. You kept our family together, no thanks to me-"

"I made a very crazy rule."

"And they all loved you so much that they followed it for decades. They wouldn't have done that _except_ for the fact that they loved you. And you deserved to be loved."

"Hmmph." She picked up a fanciful pair of high heels she'd been working on, with buckle braces to keep bones in place, so they wouldn't spread too much for comfort.

Héctor wasn't sure what to say to her in this mood. He wasn't exactly a person whose track record in their relationship would make her feel deserving of love. He got up and wandered around the workshop, which was on the first floor of an ever-growing house in a neighborhood far from the plaza which had been called, until two months ago, the Plaza de la Cruz. Imelda's resting room was off to the side, in the same place Héctor remembered their room having been in the old days. The room that would have been Coco's old room was unoccupied. He opened that door, wondering if it would be for him eventually, but it was still full of ancient shoemaking equipment. He moved on and tried another door, which led to the street, and a third, which was, as always, a broom closet. No new doors had appeared.

"I can move things out of Coco's room," Imelda offered. "If you want your own spot. Until… If." She looked down.

"I don't think it's for me." He sat down across from her and put his hand over hers, stopping her fretting at the shoe. "I can go back to Los Olvidados. I have a squat there, and - "

"_No_. You are not forgotten, Héctor. You don't belong in that awful place." She smiled ruefully. "De la Cruz should be there. You should move into that obnoxious house he built with your blood."

"I don't really want to live in my murderer's house."

"It's a perfectly fine house."

Héctor frowned. "Do you… want it? I could… if you want it, I think they're going to put him away for a long time, but…"

"I don't want it. It will stink of him." She stabbed an awl through a piece of leather in a very final-looking way. When she pulled it up and looked at the hole she'd made, she tossed the leather into a waste bin. Héctor had no idea what was wrong with it. She picked up another piece and smoothed it out, but instead of stabbing it, she said quietly, "I knew what he was. I knew it better than Coco did. I knew what lies he told about you -"

"What lies did he tell?"

"Ones I did not believe, no matter how angry I was. Lies about women. About…" She closed her eyes, as if listening to that ancient voice. "Just dirty lies. And I knew that, Héctor. I never suspected… even at the worst…"

"I know, Imelda."

"I knew what he was," she said again. "I thought I did. I was so worldly-wise, you know. But I never _suspected_… not even when you wrote to Coco about getting stomach aches whenever he had meetings."

"What?"

She raised her the painted designs that served as her eyebrows now. "People don't just pick up a powerful poison on the off chance they'll need it, Héctor. He was using it for other things first. If I'd thought of poison - ever - I'd have known. Maybe I could have even gotten on a train and gotten there in time to pour it out…"

Héctor went to her and put his hands on her shoulders. There was no muscle there to be tense, but he could still feel it. "Don't do this to yourself, cariña."

"Why not?" She turned around and took his hands, possibly the most direct affection she'd shown in the two months they'd been back together. "Héctor, we lost a _century_. A century because I was a fool. Because I didn't protect you, even though I knew what kind of man de la Cruz was."

"Protect me?"

But she was in full swing now. She stood up and paced to the far side of her workshop, hands on her hips, and looked out across the city. "We lost everything. We lost our home. We lost all of the children who weren't born yet. And when I got here, and you tried to see me, I…" She turned around, shaking her head. "Héctor, why aren't you angry at me? Why are you… I was angry at you for what turned out not to even be your fault!"

"It was my fault that I left. You did tell me to stay. You did tell me that Ernesto was using me. I didn't believe you. And I left you alone in Santa Cecilia with a child to raise. Those things are true no matter how it ended."

"Héctor…"

He went to her, knelt on the floor, and took her hands again. "Imelda, we lost a century. I'm not going to waste one more second on this."

"How can you control that? How can you stop being angry?"

"I haven't stopped being angry. At Ernesto, where it belongs. I haven't gone to see him at the jail because I want to drop another bell on him, to hell with the justice system. This time break his bones into too many pieces to put back together."

"_Not_ at Ernesto," Imelda clarified.

"At you?" He smiled. "I never could stay angry at you, so it's not really a big change. I'm too busy being amazed that you let me look at you, let alone touch you. Or kiss you. Or live with you."

She was quiet for a minute, then sighed and let go of his hands, moving back to her work table. "I used to watch you play your guitar. The way your hands moved. Trust me. I wasn't _allowing_ you anything."

The silence after that statement was both awkward and strangely peaceful. Héctor did not often miss his body anymore, but in the moment, he did. He wanted to pick her up, carry her to her room - the room that had once been _their_ room - and make everything all right between them. Then he had a grotesque image of pulling her close to him, and their ribs tangling up like crooked tree limbs, getting stuck together so that the family would have to come in and pull them apart.

That would not be romantic.

Though it would make a funny skit in one of the more grown-up shows he and Ernesto had once done on the road.

He laughed before he could stop himself, thinking of how it would all play out, and what characters would have to come in to separate them.

Imelda looked at him suspiciously. "What is it?"

"You wouldn't appreciate it."

"Try me."

"All right…" He told her what he imagined.

For a second, she looked affronted, and he thought he might be asked to leave for the night. Then her shoulders twitched, and she let out a surprised, out-of-practice laugh.

He laughed with her, much longer than the joke deserved, and sat down beside her at the work table.

"I do love you, Héctor," she decided, as the laughter finally trickled off. "When I told people I wasn't sure about that - "

"That was a lie?"

She nodded, smiling at his old routine. "Yes. That was a lie." She looked down at the shoe in her hand, seeming surprised that it was there. "Of course, the joke wouldn't work here. There are lots of married couples. I talked to Coco, there are… that is to say, they sell things to cover the ribs. I mean…" She gave a little laugh. "It's inconvenient not to be able to blush."

"Tell me about it."

"I want to get some rest."

"All right, I'll - "

"I want you to stay with me."

The weight of the century between them seemed suddenly very present.

Héctor nodded, and followed her to her room. It was small and austere, but then, it always had been.

They lay down together, a light blanket protecting their ribs. Héctor put his arms around her, and for the first time in ninety-six years, he rested easily. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

_January 13, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
It's been pretty busy the last two weeks. Papá and I went to Mexico City last week, and we stayed at the Zócalo, which was built in the 1890s. I kept wondering if it was one of the ones Papá Héctor stayed in with de la Cruz. Or if it was… you know. The last one. I dreamed that it was, but it might have just been a dream. Papá says I need to get back to right here and now, but it's not like that. Papá Héctor was my friend before I knew he was family, and I want to help him, like he helped me. That's all._

_I had a meeting at the national conservatory, so that someone can teach me over the internet. Professor Moreno introduced me to some of his students. They all say I have to learn to read music before they can teach me much. And to know how to write it on a proper staff, and with guitar chords. Papá bought me my own music notebooks. I'm starting at baby level. Just writing _scales_. But I'm going to get them right. I set one of them aside to be my first song book. I have one that's starting to come into my head. It starts with the dream I had here. But I don't know exactly how it's going to work. I think a lot of people would think it's crazy! I know Papá Héctor never had lessons like I'm going to take, but I don't think he'd be angry at me for learning this way. I think he would have liked Professor Moreno, actually, and some of the other people I talked to._

_I've never written a new song before - not a whole one, anyway, just little riffs, like I made for Frida - have you met Frida yet? I saw some of her paintings in the capital - but I really feel like I'm going to be able to._

_There's something else we started there, but I don't want to write about it, in case it comes to nothing._

_I still miss you, but I'm keeping busy. Your room is our practice room now, and when I play there, I play for you._

_Love,  
Miguel_

Enrique had never felt quite as unsophisticated as he did walking around the grounds of the Conservatorio Nacional. There was a neatly trimmed green lawn leading up to a wall of windows, with statues above the door. The statues seemed to be native musicians playing old and simple instruments, but they were the only things that seemed familiar. The professor had listened to Miguel with great delight, assuring him that this wasn't an audition, only a sort of evaluation to find him a remote teacher. "The conservatory is for when you're older. But your mamá is right. You'll need lessons to catch up on the things you've missed, so when it _does_ come time to audition, you'll be ready. And I very much want you to be ready! What a grand gift you have…!"

It had gone on in this vein for twenty minutes, and Enrique could tell that Miguel was uncomfortable after a while. He'd pointed this out.

Moreno had looked quizzically at Miguel. "What is it that makes you uncomfortable?"

"I don't want to have a big head."

"Then I will whisper." He put his hands over his mouth and whispered - loudly - to Enrique, "He's a smart boy, too. That's a danger a lot of the best students don't see coming."

Neither Enrique nor Miguel offered an explanation of how Miguel had come by this wisdom. They had agreed not to discuss the land of the dead or any of the other things people would reject out of hand. Moreno had wrapped up the private meeting, and started walking them around the campus. They'd passed practice rooms where stressed looking students seemed to be melting into their instruments. They'd seen an organ with its pipes arranged artistically on the wall, and explored the various performance spaces. Miguel had tried playing a grand piano. As far as Enrique knew, he'd never touched a keyboard before, but once Moreno showed him how the keys worked, he managed to plunk out a pretty little melody. Only one line, using only one finger, but Moreno had laughed and said it wasn't bad for a guitarist. Then they'd sat in on a composition class, where the teacher was going on about chord theory. Miguel didn't know some of the words, but once he grasped them, Enrique saw a kind of light go on in his eyes, like he was putting together things he did know or had seen, and was understanding what the class was about. It was kind of frightening, as Enrique had no idea at all.

After the class, they'd come back outside, and Moreno had asked Miguel to play for a group of older students who had all expressed interest in taking students of their own. Enrique had taken contact information from eight of them. One, upon discovering Miguel's interest in ranchera music, promptly started to dissect its history and how it related to Spanish music and the Islamic rule, and Greek influences, and how the style was a political statement about the country, and it was especially important now to embrace Mexican pride, given developments north of the border, and…

Moreno had finally interrupted him, but by the end of the rant, even Miguel had looked a little confused. Enrique thought he might not be the best choice. But it seemed that, rather than finding someone who might be willing to teach a twelve year old and settling for whoever would consent, he and Luisa and Miguel might well end up being able to sort through their options and find the one _they_ liked.

Once they'd packed up, Moreno had announced that he had a class to teach, and Miguel and Enrique headed back for the parking lot on the south side of the building, where the shop's truck looked very rural and out of place among the shiny cars.

Miguel climbed in, chattering in an excited way about his potential teachers. "… and that girl, Sesasi, she wrote a whole opera about Moctezuma and Cortes, and they put it on last year! And I told Carlos about Papá Héctor -"

Enrique frowned as he started the truck. "What?"

"Not the land of the dead things. He asked who my musical hero was, and I said it was Papá Héctor. He asked - well, first who that was - then why he was my hero and I said because he really wrote de la Cruz's songs. And Carlos said that he wrote a whole paper about why he thought de la Cruz had another songwriter. He said it was because when de la Cruz talked about music, he didn't sound like he even understood what he was saying. That everything he talked about was performing, not writing. So he wants me to tell him why I think it was Papá Héctor. Maybe he can even help us prove it! He knows a lot about what makes composers unique."

They pulled out on the fancy street outside the conservatory, and Enrique kept a close eye out on the street signs. Getting across town made him nervous. He was used to Santa Cecilia. "Do you like it here?" he asked.

"In the capital?"

"I was thinking about the Conservatory."

"I could like it for a few years. But I'd come home, Papá." He smiled, then he looked back out the window at the passing streets and started again, about how the students had known a lot about musical history, and how they said he was right about whatever it was he'd noticed in the class. "It just clicked, I always knew those chords went together, but I never knew why! And Nadia says that I have a really good ear for harmony and…"

And he was off again. Enrique only understood about one in three words - and suspected he would understand even less as Miguel learned musical language - but it was nice to see him happy. And not understanding meant that Enrique could just nod and make interested sounds while he made his way through the capital, from the winding, tree-lined streets near the conservatory (with apartments that probably cost more than the whole hacienda and shoe shop combined in Oaxaca), through a confusing tangle of freeways, and down into a sketchy neighborhood with graffiti on the walls. Thoughts of gangs and disappearances ran through Enrique's head at a constant pace - _Oh, yes, my husband and son went to find a long dead body and disappeared without a trace when the old truck broke down under the highway… and then there was an earthquake, and the whole structure caved in, so who knows if it was criminals or just Mother Nature…_ \- but Miguel didn't notice. He was now looking at a big pile of sheet music that he said was the Moctezuma opera, and trying to hum the tunes.

The kids on the street didn't actually seem hostile, though they pointed and laughed at the truck. Miguel put the score down and fiddled with his phone for a few minutes, then put it back in his pocket, looking satisfied. Finally, the nasty nest of buildings came to an end, and they came out into a kind of office park. It wasn't exactly upscale, but Enrique felt like he might be safe parking the truck here, though he told Miguel to bring his guitar with them.

The office they were looking for was on the sixth floor of a nondescript building. The glass door reflected the flickering fluorescent light above it, and the letters said "Dionisio Calles Shaughnessy, Investigador Privado." Enrique didn't want to take a guess at how to pronounce the materno; obviously, his mother had been a foreigner. Through the glass, they could see a young man with short-cropped red hair. He had a kind of military look about him, augmented by a tattoo of a stylized war plane on his upper arm, which was visible because he was just wearing an undershirt with his jeans.

"I don't know about this," Enrique said.

"We don't have to keep him if we don't like him," Miguel reminded him.

Enrique nodded, then leaned in to open the door.

Calles stood up and indicated a pair of cheap looking plastic chairs. "The Riveras?" he asked.

"I'm Enrique Rivera Hernandez," Enrique said, shaking the man's hand just as if he didn't look like a child playing at being in a noir film. "This is my son, Miguel Rivera Saavedra. It's good to meet you, Señor Calles…"

Calles grinned. "It's Sha-nes-see," he said, pointing at the door. "Well, more or less. It's Irish. No one knows how to say it, and everyone seems to think they can't ask. Keep it short form."

This put Enrique a little more at ease. "Thank you."

"So," Calles said. He picked up a thin folder and sat down at the table across from them. "Your e-mail says it's a missing person. Cold case. How cold?"

"It was 1921," Miguel said. "My great-great-grandfather disappeared. Only we found out, when my great-grandmother died, from his letters…" He looked at Enrique to finish the approved, official version of the story.

"My grandmother's letters changed abruptly after her father was in Mexico City. Then they stopped altogether less than a year later, and he was never heard from again."

"Suspicious," Calles said doubtfully, "but not entirely conclusive."

"The letters had the lyrics to most of Ernesto de la Cruz's songs," Miguel said. "A few weren't. They were older. I asked the studio if I could see de la Cruz's songbook, but they said I couldn't."

"Are you telling me that you think Ernesto de la Cruz had something to do with this man's disappearance?" He gave a snort of laughter. "If you told that to the studio, all they heard was 'We're about to be sued.'"

"We're not going to sue them," Enrique said.

"If the songs were stolen, it could be a good amount of money. Copyright is long over, of course, if your ancestor died almost a hundred years ago, but if you can prove theft and malfeasance…"

"We don't want money," Miguel cut in, horrified. "We just want to find Papá Héctor."

"You want to find a body from a century ago?"

"We thought maybe one had been found and not identified, and the papers would be somewhere. Someone must have buried him." Enrique put a hand on Miguel's shoulder. "Miguel, we knew it would be difficult."

"I can think of a few places to start. What do you have?"

Miguel bit his lip. "His name - Héctor Rivera Esposito. And he was born in 1900, in Santa Cecilia. We found records that he was an orphan. Like my Mamá Imelda. He was very skinny, and he told funny jokes, and wrote good songs, and he and de la Cruz did a show together, playing guitar."

"Do you have notices of the show?"

"Um… no."

"Then how do you know?"

"My grandmother talked about it," Enrique lied. Mamá Coco had told them many stories, but they had been about Papá Héctor's life as a family man, not as a touring musician. "But I'm sure there's something if we look hard enough. They toured enough that it was a point of argument between my great-grandparents. His wife died believing he'd just abandoned his family for the road. It's been somewhat difficult."

Calles was quiet for a long time, then said, "Obviously, something changed your mind, and you are just as obviously not going to tell me what it was."

"You wouldn't believe it," Miguel said, sinking into his chair and crossing his arms over his chest.

For a moment, the detective looked like he might probe this, then he said, "You know what? If I wouldn't believe it, no one else would, either. Stick to what you think I'll believe."

"Mamá Coco's papa wouldn't have left her," Miguel said. "And everything we have says he was with de la Cruz here in the city."

Enrique nodded. "They'd been touring for months, and his letters said that he wanted to come home. He kept talking about how de la Cruz kept adding shows and he didn't want to do them. How he hated the meetings with studios so much that he kept getting stomachaches every time de la Cruz set one up."

"Stomachaches?" Calles repeated, leaning forward.

"Yes." Enrique paused to think about how to phrase this, as he couldn't very well say that the idea of poisoning came from a movie scene and was confirmed by a ghost. Plus, Miguel was looking at him strangely. For the first time, it occurred to him that he and Luisa had put together something that Miguel hadn't even thought about. Of course not. Miguel was twelve. He was a gifted musician and a smart boy, but he was not an adult, and often didn't think many steps ahead of the moment. He sighed. There was no turning back. "If it was once, it could have been a coincidence. If he'd come home safe, I'd think it was just a funny story about how nervous my bisabuelo was about big meetings. But it was every meeting after the first one, and he never came home. My wife and I have talked about it."

"You're thinking of poison," Calles guessed with no fanfare. "That de la Cruz was trying to keep him away from the meetings for some reason - "

"Because he wouldn't sell the studios his special songs," Miguel said. "Which de la Cruz ended up singing. 'Remember Me' was a lullaby for my Mamá Coco."

Calles nodded and sat back. "That's a lot of fame and money. Murder has been done for less."

"At any rate," Enrique said, "the letters changed after they were here. They started being typed, for one thing, and he wasn't talking about coming home. He was talking about how much fun he was having, and how de la Cruz was trying to help him. It doesn't make sense. As a family man, there's no way I'd write letters like that back to my wife and son after promising to come home and not doing it. So de la Cruz wrote them for _some_ reason."

"_And_," Miguel said, "we can prove that the guitar de la Cruz played belonged to Papá Héctor. We have it in a photograph."

"We thought maybe a detective would know someone who could analyze the signatures on the typed letters and…"

"And figure out whether or not they were forged?" Calles shrugged. "It's possible, since you have the old ones. And you said there were marriage papers? Did he sign those?"

"Yes."

"All right. I'll need the originals, maybe we can date the ink." He saw Miguel recoil. "Don't worry, chamaco. I'll guard them with my life, and get them back to you as soon as someone has had a chance to work on them. If you'll have me?" He looked at Enrique.

Enrique nodded. "Miguel… I saw a bodega down at street level. Will you go pick us up some supper while I finish up with Señor Calles?" He fished for his wallet and handed Miguel a five hundred peso note.

Miguel looked at it without much interest, then grinned wearily and held it up, to show the woman on the back. "Frida," he said. "It's a sign."

"It's money. Bring change."

Miguel nodded and left without argument.

"A fan of Kahlo?" Calles asked.

"Part of the longer story," Enrique said. "We saw her paintings at the Museum of Modern Art yesterday. What are the chances of finding Héctor's body?"

"Slim to none," Calles said, not trying to extend the small talk. "You were right to come to a detective. I'll have to use every contact I have to get that deep into the cold cases. May I ask why the boy is so adamant?"

Enrique sighed and looked at Miguel's guitar case, which he'd left leaning against the plastic chair. "My son is a musician," he said. "For years after my great-grandfather disappeared… the family… we thought he abandoned us for music and… it sounds so stupid, but we… we banned music. We…" Enrique stopped, embarrassed at the admission.

Calles nodded. "My mother's father was a taxi driver in Chicago. Until a fare shot him in the head over thirty dollars and change - that would be a little over six hundred pesos. Maybe more. Maybe a thousand, once you adjust for inflation. Nothing that mattered. My grandmother started drinking, and let her whole family fall apart. My mother spent her childhood learning to fight, to aim guns, to make sure no one could hurt her. It served her well enough in the army, but she's a hard woman sometimes. Her little brother went off to the country and won't let his children near the city, because he's convinced they'll die. So they can't take lessons or really think about any decent colleges, or anything. Whatever talents they have are going to waste. Her sister disowned her when she married a Mexican because the man who shot my grandfather was named Ortega. They haven't spoken since."

"I'm sorry."

"The point is, murder… the actual body is maybe the one that gets least twisted by it. It's broken my family, and I can't see it being fixed any time soon. So, banning music? I give your family credit for keeping it together enough for that to be all you're worried about, especially if you weren't even sure he was dead. That had to be horrible."

"It was. I think Mamá Coco had it worst, because she knew her father would never leave her, but…"

"But she couldn't talk to anyone, because they were so busy being angry?"

"Right."

"I'll find him. It's rash to give a promise, but I promise. Somehow. I'll find out what happened, anyway. We'll call this a flat fee." He gave Enrique a piece of paper with an absurdly low price on it. "I have other cases to make money on. But you fix your family. Your musician son, let him prove this business about the songs. I'll get him technical things, like handwriting and ink age, but it will be up to him to prove the musicality. Let him feel like he has brought everything back, full circle. And the feeling will be right. The body is incidental. The theft is the crux of it. And I think your boy knows it."

"I wish he'd move on and think about something else."

"Your family didn't move on for almost a century, Señor Rivera. It takes more work than a single revelation. So let me do this unimportant part for you. Your family will need to do the rest."

Enrique thought about it, then nodded.

He signed a contract with Calles (promising himself that, if they _did_ sue the studio, he would give a substantial bonus, whether Calles found the body or not), then picked up Miguel's guitar and went down to street level, where he found Miguel coming out of the bodega with a bag of groceries. Enrique put an arm around him, and they walked together to the truck.

They didn't spend the night talking about Papá Héctor's body, or stolen songs. Instead, they stopped at a music shop and bought a dozen staff notebooks, and an introductory book on music theory that Professor Moreno had recommended. Then they settled into the hotel room for their last night in the capital, and tried to teach one another to read music.

Miguel fell asleep smiling. Enrique watched him for a while before turning out the light.

The next day, they drove back to Santa Cecilia.

Miguel spent the trip with one of the new notebooks on his knee, holding a pencil as steadily as he could with the truck bouncing along. He wrote scales, over and over, changing keys and marking flats and sharps on the lines. He learned to draw the flagged notes that he said were shortest ("Basically, the more ink you use writing it, the shorter it is"), and how to draw bass and treble clefs ("There are more, but Professor Moreno said to let those wait"). As they pulled into Santa Cecilia, he drew three stacks of notes that were apparently chords.

"The problem," he said as they climbed out of the truck in the late afternoon, "is that I don't know how to put in the measures. I know where the beats are supposed to be, but..." He frowned. "It's hard. There's a measure at the beginning before the first real beat happens, and..."

"Do you have a song in your head?"

"Not yet. I'm trying to transcribe one of Papá Héctor's. Just for practice. I think I need to look at it to see how it worked."

"Just maybe."

"I thought I'd have this part."

"In one afternoon in a shaky truck?" Enrique shook his head. "Give yourself a break, mijito. Let's go in and have supper."

Everyone wanted tales of the city, and the conservatory. They were excited to hear about a trip to visit a detective. Rosa announced that she knew her way around the library, so she would go in search of proof of the duo act ("It's got to be somewhere!") Mamá wondered if it would be useful for her, as Papá Héctor's closest relative, to take "one of those tests where you spit on something and they can tell you who you are," but of course, with nothing to compare it to, it wouldn't help Papá Héctor. ("Still," Papá said, "you don't know much about half of your family, mi alma. Why not do it and find out? We can leave it on the ofrenda, and then they'll know, too.")

For a week, it became almost a game for everyone except Miguel, who seemed the only one in the house who remembered that there was no happy ending to be had. He buried himself in the music theory books, coming up for air only to sit with Luisa and Enrique and read the teaching proposals that Moreno's students had sent. He chose the boy Carlos, who had written the paper about de la Cruz being a poser, and asked if he could get a copy of it. Carlos sent it, and asked if he had any record of Papá Héctor singing without de la Cruz, as a point of comparison. Since Rosa still hadn't found a record of him singing _with_ de la Cruz, it didn't seem likely.

Miguel was to begin his lessons in February, when Carlos would have made up a curriculum for him. In the meantime, he was instructed to practice, to sing, to have fun, and to read as much music as he could.

So Enrique was used to the sound of the guitar coming from Mamá Coco's room, and from Miguel's own room late at night, after he was supposed to be asleep. He was getting used to poking his head in to tell Miguel that it was time to turn off the lights. So he wasn't surprised to get up in the night and see a spill of light coming from under Miguel's door at one-thirty. He sighed and went in.

There was another letter to Mamá Coco sealed on the desk, put in a box with the first one. But Miguel hadn't fallen asleep over the letter. His head was resting on one of the music notebooks, his somewhat swollen fingers grasped around a pencil. And on the staff was a new song. Enrique couldn't read it, but he knew instinctively that it wasn't just a transcription. It was a single line of melody, with a single line of lyrics underneath it - _Dirás que es raro lo que me pasó_. You'll think that it's strange, what happened to me.

It looked like nothing, but Enrique thought that Miguel had paid a lot for the breakthrough.

Carefully, he nudged his son up, and guided him, sleepwalking, to his bed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

_Cuando siento el sol lejano  
Y el viento baila en la hierba,  
Entonces te escucho reír.  
Cuando las olas tocan la orilla,  
Y veo estrellas imposibles,  
Entonces te escucho reír._

_(When I feel the distant sun  
And the wind dances in the grass,  
Then I hear you laughing.  
When the waves touch the shore  
And I see impossible stars  
Then I hear you laughing.) _

Héctor awoke with music in his head.

There was a time in his life when that had been unremarkable. There always seemed to be _some_ tune jangling around in his skull, and often the hardest part of coming out of a dream was trying to figure out if he'd heard the song before, or if it was just one of those pretty little gifts that sometimes came out of the ether. If it turned out to be the latter, he'd rush to his desk and try to catch the melody before it disappeared. Then the work would start - measuring out the counts, getting the right notation to share it, and expanding beyond the melody into a full song. It was a strange, but well-used part of his brain - half inspiration, half mathematics.

He'd been able to improvise as well. Working on the street, improvisation had often been a more lucrative skill than songwriting, and it was always fun. But he'd found, once he'd learned how to read and write music, that his improvisations had also gotten better, because he'd understood what he was doing.

He had loved everything about music back then, from discovering the sound of some new instrument to writing directions on how _exactly_ each song sounded inside his head. It had seemed almost magical to bring songs out of the air and make them tangible. He had always been a doodler as well; most of his early lyric drafts were surrounded by dancing figures that at least vaguely resembled whoever he was drawing (usually Imelda, until Coco was born). The idea that thoughts and images could form from ink on paper had been wonderful. He'd never understood the disdain that some musicians had for the written line. The guitar had been his best instrument, and his voice had been his first… but his pen had been an instrument, too, and it sang to him as clearly as any other.

When he'd first found himself in the land of the dead, the music had still been playing for him. Coco's song most of all, but also new things… sad songs, mostly, about Imelda and Coco and Santa Cecilia. He'd never particularly enjoyed city life, and mainly considered it an unavoidable nuisance even now. Still, he hadn't ever thought of himself as especially a creature of his home town until he left it, and even then, it was simply an idea he had of where he happened to live with his family. But when he'd first arrived here, and realized he would never see his home again, suddenly every brick of Santa Cecilia had been dear to him, and he could remember the details of the cracked stucco on the back of the theater and the exact shade of the sky at sunset. It had haunted him, made him weak every time the memories rolled over him. These weren't like gentle waves washing through his mind. They were more like unstoppable lava, crushing and burning him at the same time.

He could smell the bakery near the house, and hear the sound of shoes tapping out rhythms on the cobblestones. He could hear the church bell and feel the warm evening breeze. Most of all, he could feel everything about his home - the old shoemaker's shack that he and Imelda had turned into a proper house, the way the sun came through the windows, the way their voices rang against the ceiling. He remembered the cracks in the paint and the spider web that always seemed to form over the cupboards in the workshop. He remembered Coco's room, and the way all of the little potions Imelda used to keep her clean smelled. He remembered the exact texture of Imelda's skin (in point of fact, he still did, though that skin had not existed for decades), and the sound of Coco's laughter when he clowned for her.

It was all one thing… his wife, his daughter, his home. And he'd written incessantly about it at first. He hadn't shared the songs with anyone. He'd had a keen sense, always, of the division between public and private. But the songs had kept coming and he'd written all of them down. He didn't know where they were now, unless Ernesto had found some way to steal them. As the hovels he'd lived in became smaller and smaller, as Coco and Imelda thought of him less, the things he'd once had seemed to scatter into nothing. Maybe they would come back now, as he gained strength. Or maybe they were lost forever. He just didn't know.

He'd played in the square with Gustavo for a few years, and it had been there he'd first discovered that Ernesto had taken his songs. He'd been noodling "Only A Song," sitting around Marigold Grand Central Station after Mexico had joined the second world war, watching the daily new arrivals for anyone he knew. And someone had said, "Hey, they greet us with de la Cruz songs here!"

Héctor hadn't corrected the people coming over. They were disoriented enough without questioning someone who'd become a hero. But he got the story, bit by bit. That was when the melodies started to go away. It had been a slow process, and he hadn't noticed at first. Ernesto himself had arrived only a few months after Héctor had started putting the pieces together, and Héctor had thought, at first, that he would offer some easy explanation, and correct people himself, but it never happened. He never even responded to Héctor's overtures of friendship. Somewhere inside of him, a little ember of anger started to burn. When he'd realized with disgust that the bombastic tune everyone seemed to associate with de la Cruz was Coco's lullaby - a song he'd explicitly refused to let Ernesto use, despite much pleading after he'd heard it in one hotel room after another - the ember had flared up into a real spark, and it had started eating away at the music. He'd stopped writing by the mid-fifties. It had been slowing down for so long that he hadn't noticed, not really, until… well, really, until Miguel had come, and he realized he had nothing new to share.

Time had a way of getting away here.

He hadn't abandoned music entirely, not then. He didn't know where his guitar had come from. Maybe Coco remembered him well enough that he was still able to create the thing he needed. Certainly, it had never been on an ofrenda. He had never failed to show up at the bridge on Día de Muertos, and it had never been open for him. But it was there, and he'd played it for years. He played for himself on long, lonely days. And he played with Gustavo, and sometimes Chicharron. He avoided the plaza that Ernesto was building, at least until there was nothing left for him except giving tours, but there were other plazas, and people loved to hear a familiar song.

Then he had looked up one day, in the middle of a ribald tune about a girl named Verónica and the many ways she played her harmónica, and he'd seen Imelda. There had been no moment of wondering if it was really her. He'd gotten very good at reading skeletal faces and seeing them for who they had been, and even if he hadn't, it was _Imelda_.

For a moment, they had looked at each other. She was only a few feet away. She was dressed in the nightgown she'd died in that day. She hadn't found her things yet. She had a white streak in her hair, but it did nothing to detract from her beauty. If anything, it enhanced it. The markings on her bones were in shades of purple, matching the ribbon that someone, most likely Coco, had tied lovingly into her hair.

"Imelda," he'd said, and he'd reached out to her.

She'd pulled her arm out of his reach with a look of pure loathing. "I should have known I'd find you with an audience, playing your stupid songs. I see you're still laughing."

And she had disappeared.

He'd handed his guitar to Cheech. It wasn't the same one he'd had later. By then, neither of them could have thought an instrument into being. All of his things were taken from other people's unneeded offerings at the end. He didn't know what happened to that guitar, any more than he knew where it had come from in the first place. Maybe it had disappeared in a flurry of golden dust, like everything else.

He'd never gone looking for it. He'd understood everything in the instant he saw Imelda. In all the years he'd been here, all the years he'd missed her, it had never crossed his mind that she didn't even know he was dead. But the look on her face when she'd seen him was unmistakable. She thought he'd just left her for his career, and never bothered coming back. He hadn't been angry when she turned him away. He'd been too heartbroken and humiliated to be angry. He _had_ left, after all, and was she really wrong that it had been an abandonment, an abdication of his responsibilities? Hadn't he hurt her, and left her alone just to go chasing after Ernesto's dreams? He understood the world as she'd seen it for her entire life, and he was ashamed.

That was when he'd sworn off music. It had been an attempt to prove himself to her. It had never worked.

And now he was with her again, and with Coco. And the music was back as well. He wasn't sure if he should tell her or not.

She decided the question when he arrived at the workshop by saying, without fanfare, "So, what's the song?"

He frowned. "I… I'm not sure."

"You were humming in your sleep. I forgot you did that."

"And you're… okay with it?"

She smiled. "It sounded pretty."

"I'm not sure it's mine," he said.

She nodded without comment. She knew the process. "Why not go write what you can? I'll see you at lunch."

He didn't say _Te quiero_ and neither did she, but it was still there. He touched her face and she smiled, then he went to the room on the second floor that had started to generate instruments here and there, and had a simple desk. When he checked the desk drawers, he wasn't surprised to find a pen and some staff paper. All he knew for sure was that it started with a single high, soft note. Flute? Probably. A high, lonely flute. Then the guitar, soft in the background.

And the voice. The voice was…

"Miguel," he whispered, recognizing it even as it began to sing in his mind. He smiled broadly. "This is you, isn't it, chamaco?"

"Papá?"

He looked up. Coco was in the doorway, in her slippers and nightgown. Imelda was making her a new dress, but she seemed largely uninterested in it. She'd been in slippers and a nightgown for a very long time.

"Good morning," he said, and got up to hug her. He hadn't gotten tired of it yet. He didn't think he'd get tired of hugging and kissing his daughter for a very long time, and she didn't seem tired of receiving hugs and kisses.

"Mamá said you were in here," she said. "Are you writing something new? She said you were humming."

"I don't think so," Héctor told her. "I think it's Miguel. I think he's started composing."

"Is it normal to know that?"

"How can we know what's normal? What happened to him has never happened before."

"No one else was ever cursed?"

"Not that way." Héctor listened for more of the song, but it didn't come. Miguel hadn't gotten very far. "Thinking of that, I should find out how to make sure the guitar is mine, and I can hand it down to Miguel. As much as I'd like to see him again, it's probably better if he doesn't get himself cursed by deciding to get some practice in on Día de Muertos."

"I think they're working on that back in Santa Cecilia." Coco sat down, very carefully. "I didn't know much of what was going on at the end. But I did hear Enrique on the phone, arguing with someone about the guitar. He kept saying his grandmother was dying and he was not going to give her father's guitar back when it was helping her, and… well, it was a bit of a fight. Hopefully, they'll get that settled." She smiled. "Hopefully, no one will find out that he and I had been breaking into the mausoleum for years to keep the thing in tune. I don't think that would go over well."

Héctor looked at her, surprised. "When did you learn to tune a guitar?"

"I taught myself. I found an old pitch pipe that Mamá missed in the general purge, at least until I could do it by ear. The rest is physics." She shrugged. "I hated seeing your guitar rotting on the wall of a tomb. It needed to sing."

"Even if I was dead?" He took her hand. "Did you know?"

"I knew. I always knew. You would have come home otherwise."

"I'd have thought that Ernesto would have come back and told you how he heroically tried to save me, but just couldn't do it."

"He didn't come back until I wrote to him and he thought I was about to blow his cover. Then he threatened to sue us if we ever breathed a word about where the songs came from. Well, he threatened that the studio would sue us. He, of course, had no choice in the matter." She crossed her arms and looked out the window at the soaring heights of the city beyond. A tram passed the window across the street. "I should have put your photo up," she said. "I didn't believe. In this." She pointed vaguely at the things around her. "I didn't believe anything would happen. I thought you were already gone."

"Coco…"

"No, don't make me stop. All right? I need to say it, Papá. I didn't believe, and I hurt you. I didn't mean to, but I did. I should have made them listen to your stories a long time before I did. I shouldn't have let things go so far."

Héctor wanted to ask how things _had_ gotten so out of hand, why Elena had carried on Imelda's rule with even more passion than Imelda had… but he didn't. Maybe he could ask Victoria. She didn't seem to have any need to apologize to him over and over. Instead, he just squeezed Coco's hand and said, "It's all right, mija. It ended up right." He let go and held up his hand. "When Miguel came here, I was falling apart so much that my hands could walk around on their own. Now? It takes quite a hit to break me apart. When you remembered, I… I knit back together. I don't rattle anymore. I just… it's like being whole again. You fixed it, Coco. You saved me."

"Miguel did. I'd almost let go."

"You both did. Okay?"

She looked like she might go on, but in the end, she just smiled and nodded. "All right, Papá." She looked at the staff paper, where all Héctor had managed to transcribe before realizing that this wasn't his song was a whole note with a crescendo. "So what is Miguelito writing?"

"I only got one line in my head." Héctor pulled out his guitar and played the opening as well as he could remember, then sang, "Dirás que es raro que lo me pasó." He shrugged. "That's all I heard. I think it's about what happened here. I mean, it's pretty _raro_, isn't it?"

"That it is." Coco looked at the empty staff paper. "Do you think you could send a line back in his dreams?"

"Maybe. I don't know how, but I feel like it could be done. But I won't. Miguel is doing fine on his own. And this will be his."

"That's fair." She sat down across from him. "But in all truth, Papá… if we can find a way to let him know you're all right, I think it would set his mind at ease."

"Well, I can tell you that it doesn't work to try and sneak across the bridge."

"Is the bridge even there?"

"The big one, only on Día de Muertos. But every time someone passes, there's a little one. You remember."

"It disappeared very quickly."

"Yes."

"All I really remember is that one minute, I was having trouble breathing. Elena kept saying, 'It's all right, Mamá.' And Miguel was playing, and Gloria was holding my pictures against my hand." She gestured at the photos that she'd tacked up to the wall, showing all of the living family. Miguel grinned out from the center one, sitting on her lap when he was small. "And then I was here, and everyone was waiting. I was actually surprised, no matter what Miguel told me."

"I'd never given it any thought at all. At the time I died, I still thought I'd live forever."

"I never believed that. Especially not after I lost Victoria." She shook her head. "That must have been a busy day here. The earthquake got more than five thousand souls. But I could only care about one. She shouldn't even have been in the capital. It was just a stupid errand."

Héctor reached over and took her hand again. "She's back with you now," he said.

"Just like Elena always said she would be." Coco gave a little shudder, like she was shaking cobwebs off her bones. "So what are _you_ going to write?"

"I don't know." Héctor picked up the non-descript guitar that had shown up in the broom closet not long after he'd gotten here, and picked out a light melody on the upper strings. "You think I should write Mamá a song? You think she'd like that?"

"I think she's hoping for it, but she'll never admit it."

"That's my Imelda."

"She always was. Just for the record."

"I know." He played a little more, then said, "I don't know what I want to write."

"You could try forgiving her."

Héctor put his hands in the air and shook them melodramatically. "I'm not angry! Why do the two of you not believe me?"

Coco caught one of his hands. She was smiling, but serious. "Papá, maybe it's not about what you feel about what happened. Maybe it's about what she feels."

"And what you feel?"

She nodded.

Feeling a bit slow, Héctor took a breath and said, "I forgive you for not putting up my photo, if you think you need it."

"I do need it."

"And… do you forgive me?"

"Yes. I forgive you for leaving." She smiled. "That was easy. See?"

It wasn't, of course. Héctor had no desire to think about Coco holding his picture in a drawer for a hundred years, half of them after Imelda was no longer there to be hurt by it. He had no desire to think of Imelda shaming him over and over. He was too thankful to have them back. And it was _real_ gratitude, not anything he was faking. He was the one who'd walked away. They'd owed him nothing.

Coco stood up, then leaned over and kissed Héctor's head, just as she had when she'd been small. "Get back to work, then. Write Mamá a forgiving song."

Héctor stared at the staff paper with some trepidation. "You're not going to ask me to write one for Tío Nesto next, are you?"

"Not unless he really begs your forgiveness, and even then, that one's up to you. I wouldn't do it, personally. And I wouldn't tell Mamá if you do." She smiled and left.

Héctor stared for a long time at the paper, not even sure where to start. He could think of a million songs asking for forgiveness, but he couldn't remember a single one about giving it. Especially when the person offering forgiveness had no right to be angry in the first place.

He looked at the photos on the wall, a tiny ofrenda for the living. Miguel looked at him blindly from the paper. Héctor remembered him weeping, just before they'd sent him back, because he'd lost the damned picture when Ernesto had thrown him from the building. All sorts of people, begging forgiveness for things that weren't their fault. Héctor had nearly gotten him killed, and the more he thought about it, the more he thought that picture might not even have been able to make the crossing. There had been a real picture, of course. He'd nearly forgotten it when he packed up, and he thought Coco would like it. It didn't fit in his pocket, so he'd tucked it inside his shirt. It was against his skin when he died. But what came over… it was as much a ghost as he was. Could Miguel even have carried it out?

That had been a dangerous and nasty mistake, putting Miguel in the reach of a man who'd already tried to kill him once, and for what?

"I'm sorry, chamaco," he said. "Maybe you can help me out with a forgiveness song."

But nothing came to him.

He tried to change topics, but now the idea was haunting him, and he couldn't let go of it. Forgiving. Being forgiven.

No other ideas came.

He sat in the music room without playing or writing for an hour, maybe a bit more, then put his things away and went out into the house. Victoria was taking out a load of shoes for an order, and he asked if he could join her on the trip. She said she'd be glad of the company.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

_February 18, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
The baby is here! I wish you could have stayed long enough to see her. I know you wanted to. I gave her the little hat you knitted for me, but she has more than that from you. Mamá and Papá named her Socorro. We don't call her Coco yet, but I think we will. She has very big eyes, and she was born with lots of hair. Mamá can even put a little ribbon in it. I like having her here. I sometimes feed her bottles - Mamá is a little sick again, but she says she knew she would be and I shouldn't worry - and I sing to her and talk to her. I told her all about you, since she has your name. I think she likes me! She always reaches for me when I come home from school. Rosa says I'll get bored with a baby pretty soon, but I don't think so. Papá Héctor never got bored with you, so why should I get bored? I can't wait to see what she's like when she gets bigger and starts talking._

_I started a song last month. I dreamed I was sitting with Papá Héctor and he kept telling me I could do it. If I finish it, it will be an offering for him. And if we can keep the guitar, I'll have that, and if he can take it as an offering, maybe he can finally have it back. The things we leave as offerings are still on the ofrenda in the morning, so maybe, if I give it to him, it can exist in both places. I'd like him to have it back. I want to think of something good to give Mamá Imelda, too, but the only thing I can think of that might make her happy is that I am learning to make shoes. Papá helped me, and between us, we made a good pair of botines. Next time, I'll try it on my own. I hope she's still singing, though. Mamá is fixing up your favorite dress - the blue and yellow one with flowers on the top - and she'll leave that for you. I don't know if you can change clothes or not, but if you can, we all thought you might like to not be in your nightgown anymore. And we'll leave you your dancing shoes, too. I found them, you know, up in my attic spot - I guess it was yours, too! And I'm fixing them myself. They'll be easier to dance in than bedroom slippers._

_Rosa keeps getting better on the violin. I made a violin part in the song, so that she can play it with me. Abel isn't very good at his accordion, but I'll make something simple. I think he wants to be part of things. I started my lessons with Carlos from the Conservatorio. It's kind of scary, honestly. But I'm glad to be doing it._

_Love from me AND my baby sister,  
Miguel (and Socorro)_

Enrique sat as quietly as he could in the back of the practice room, giving Socorro a bottle and keeping an eye on Miguel's lesson. Miguel said he didn't have to, but Enrique and Luisa had agreed that leaving their twelve-year-old alone with a grown man on the internet was not an option until they were one hundred percent sure of him.

Which _did_ seem overcautious, now that he was watching. Carlos took Miguel through several chord progressions, and they were now deeply involved in a conversation about filing down the bridge of a guitar when there was some particular problem with the strings. Miguel had discovered the problem on his own when he'd built his old guitar ("You… _built_ one? On your own?"), but it turned into a science lesson on how the guitar actually worked. Miguel, looking abashed, admitted that he could describe what it did, but he didn't really understand it. All of it had been over Enrique's head more or less from the time they finished saying hello, but it seemed above-board enough.

Socorro made a sleepy, contented sound, and pushed the bottle away, snuggling up against him. He wrapped her little blanket more tightly around and leaned back, turning his chest into a makeshift bed for her. Miguel had always liked that, and Socorro seemed to as well. "It's your heart," Luisa had said. "They love to hear it beat, just like I do."

She was tired now, and still feeling a little under the weather. And she wasn't making enough milk, but they'd known that would happen, just as it had with Miguel. They were prepared. But she was getting stronger, and had asked Gloria to bring in her sewing basket, so she could keep working on Miguel's birthday present. She'd be fine.

_And if you keep telling yourself that, maybe it won't be your fault that she's feeling sick in the first place._

Luisa didn't have a lot of patience for this line of thought, so he didn't voice it often, but still. It was hard to deny that she wouldn't be ill right now if she'd become a nun.

"Did you get a chance to go through that article I sent you about the history of the guitar in Central American music?" Carlos asked.

"Yes, but I didn't understand everything," Miguel said eagerly. "It talked about the way the native people picked up the Spanish guitar, but I don't know what was Spanish and what was native…"

"It's like us, muchacho," Carlos said. "It's hard to tell where one starts and the other stops. It's the mix that makes it what it is."

"So… what does plain Spanish music sound like?"

"Did you watch the dancers from Sevilla?"

"I've seen flamenco here, too."

"The world is small now, my friend. Everything is played together. But flamenco is native to Andalusia. And there, it's a mix of Spanish, and Moorish, and Romani, and everything else." He laughed. "I guess it's not just now. The world has always been small for musicians. We can't resist sharing with each other."

"The world is mi familia?" Miguel asked cautiously.

"Musically, yes. But like we talked about when your parents hired me, your musical family is a different thing than your real one. Your musical family is about to get very large. I'm starting you in Spain and Mexico, but before you know it, we'll be in India and Russia and Austria. And we'll time travel back to ancient Greece, and walk with medieval troubadours, and learn about ritual music and rhythms…"

"I like it, but why?"

"Because I feel like I had a chance to get to know you during our talk. And you said something important to me - that you learned who you were by learning who was in your past. What's true of your blood family is true of your musical family."

"Oh."

"So, I think we'll spend half our time catching you up on theory and notation and the basics, until you're functional. You don't need a lot of technique instruction, just keep up your practice. We'll play a lot, and I'll give you feedback, but when it comes to performance skills, we're peers. I may ask you for feedback as well. But I'm going to get you grounded in your craft. I want you to feel as at ease with Mozart as you are with your Papá Héctor." He smiled. "In fact, I think you'll like Mozart quite a lot. There's a film I'd like you to see, but I'll want your parents to see it first, to make sure they're all right with it. It's got some strange stuff in it, but it also has a lot of important things to say about music and artistry."

Enrique considered announcing his presence and asking about the details of the film, but Miguel was already writing it down for him.

The lesson went on. Enrique continued to be lost, but Miguel was enthralled. Toward the end of the hour, Carlos had him play a piece he'd sent to practice sight reading on. Enrique couldn't hear any flaws, but Miguel stopped halfway through and apologized over and over for not getting it right. Carlos waved it off and said that for a beginner at reading music, he did quite a good job. "We'll have you sight reading perfectly in no time! Why were you getting stuck at the key change?"

"I kept losing track of the accidentals in the bridge." Miguel bit his lip. "Before you go, did you have a chance to look at those papers I sent you the pictures of, with Papá Héctor's lyrics?"

"I did. I don't suppose he left the music anywhere?"

"Not that we've found yet."

"Do you have any record of his performances?"

Miguel shook his head miserably.

"Something will come up," Carlos said. "But I want you to concentrate on your own music right now."

"I started a song. I only have some of the lyrics, but this is the guitar part…"

Miguel played the opening measures of the song he was working on, singing the solo part above it, somewhat shyly.

Enrique looked up over Socorro's head to see Carlos's face on the screen. He was listening avidly, obviously interested. (Enrique was glad that they were recording the session, in case Carlos suddenly came up with a similar tune.)

"I think," Carlos said when Miguel finished what he'd written, "that we will introduce you to composition more quickly than I'd anticipated. Send me the music so I can check your notation. And for God's sake, make sure your name is attached to it in many, many places before you send it even over a private connection."

"It's all right then?"

"You know it's all right. You know it's better than all right." He smiled, looking a little dazed. "Again, may I recommend Mozart? Try _The Magic Flute._"

"Okay."

"And your assignment for this week, I want you to find at least three different genres of guitar. You know classical. I'd like you to listen to blues, flamenco, and oh, have some fun. You pick the third and tell me about it. But I want you to go outside your comfort zone for it. And try to copy a song in each. It doesn't have to be perfect, but I want you to start getting other sounds in your repertoire."

At that, Socorro decided to contribute her own sound - a healthy, full-throated wail as she reached for her bottle.

"My sister is saying hello," Miguel said. "And I should say goodbye. Our hour is up."

"Have a good week."

On screen, Carlos reached forward, then disappeared, the window going dark in his wake.

Miguel came over and scooped up Socorro, looking just as thrilled to practice his big brother skills as he was to practice his guitar skills. "Who's the best baby sister? Who's got the best grito? Is it Socorro? Is it my very own herma-nit-it-it-a?"

Enrique wrapped the sling around her back, tying it over Miguel's shoulders. "Here. Big brother duty."

Looking utterly delighted with the task, Miguel kept up his baby talk patter, transitioning into a nonsense song with no discernable seam.

Enrique ruffled his hair and put an arm over his shoulders and led him outside into the warm afternoon sunshine. Mamá Coco's room, at the end of her life - now the children's practice room - was actually detached from the rest of the main house, or at least not accessible from the interior. It had once been a kind of storage room. Mamá Coco and Papá Julio had lived in what had once been an entirely separate house, kitty corner from the shop. Mamá Imelda had bought all of the land and the odd collection of buildings on it, and Papá Julio had built connecting walls over the years, and to Enrique, it always seemed to fit together, though he was aware that it looked something like a clever, giant child had decided to build a hacienda out of mismatched Legos.

At any rate, when Berto had married Carmen, Papá Julio had been gone for two years, and Mamá Coco had decided to make a wedding present of what she still called "the new house," which had, to be fair, been a wedding present to her from her mother. It had already been joined to the cabins the twins had built (which were Enrique and Luisa's rooms), and to a little street-facing building that was now Miguel's room, which was just across a constructed breezeway from the cabins. Enrique had removed and plastered up the street side door before moving Miguel into it. Mamá Coco's room had started its life as a shed. It shared a roof and a wall with the rest of the house, but not a door. She liked the idea of having her own space, and Carmen had fixed it up for her beautifully. But it had always seemed strange that she was kept somehow separate from everyone else.

Beyond the "new house" was the gate that led in from the unlovely side street, where they parked the truck and the other family vehicles (Abel's motorcycle looked predatory among them), and a glorified lean-to where they kept tools and other supplies. Beyond that, there was the two-story rise of the "old house"- the second building that Mamá Imelda had owned, where Mamá Coco had done most of her growing up. It was next door to the shop where they had originally lived with Papá Héctor, and Mamá Imelda had hired the wall and gate built to connect them. It was at this, the highest point, that the twins had hung the shop's sign, even though the store was technically next door. Mamá Imelda had lived her entire life in the old house, and it hadn't been occupied since her death. They mostly used it for storage and family knick-knacks, because it wasn't handy to the rest of the hacienda. It was in the attic here that the family's rebels had all left their marks - Mamá Coco's pile of dancing shoes, Tía Victoria's aging fashion magazines, and of course, Miguel's music collection. Mamá had only found a fraction of it on Día de Muertos. The rest of the family had come up a few days later and helped him purge it of every trace of de la Cruz. No one had commented on this.

Miguel looked up at it. "When Socorro's big enough for her own room," he said, "she can have mine. I could live in the old house."

"Oh, could you?"

"Maybe. Maybe I could stay there and fix it up, and when it's time to… you know, have my own family, maybe we could live in it."

"You're thinking way too far ahead, mijito. And you're not spending your teenage years any place you can lock the door on me. There's no connection there."

"Well, you can walk along the roof." He pointed at the uneven tiled surfaces that went around the outer wall of the hacienda. He'd been on those paths more or less since he'd learned to walk, but it had never been Enrique's domain.

"_You_ can walk along the roof. And not when your mamá is looking; you scared her half to death."

"I wouldn't lock you out."

"You say that at twelve. I'll believe it when you're sixteen."

He made a face, then shrugged and shifted Socorro. "Will she have her own room, or will she share with Rosa?"

"Tío Berto and I talked about it. There's the mud room. We can fix that up nice and cute."

"Can I help?"

"Will you still want to in, let's say, two years?"

He nodded, then picked Socorro up enough to look him in the eye. "I'll be the best big brother. You're going to love me. I'll make you the best room, and I'll write you your own lullaby. It won't be about remember me, though, because I'm not going anywhere."

"You'll be going to the Conservatory, Miguel. If you want to and make it in."

"I do. I… think I do."

Enrique sighed and walked Miguel to the little patio Papá had built back in the 80s. There was a blue bench in the shadows, and they sat down on it.

"Miguel," he said, "I know you don't want to abandon your family, and I don't want you to. But you have a talent that may lead you in directions other than living here at the hacienda and listening to shoemaking all day. It's not 1921 anymore. It won't mean that you won't have any contact with us. No matter where you need to go, your family will love you and be part of you."

He pulled Socorro closer. "I don't want to forget…"

"Us?"

"Me!" He looked up miserably. "When I was with de la Cruz, in the land of the dead" - he looked anxiously at Enrique, as if expecting a sign of disbelief - "he… when he thought I was his great-great-grandson, he thought it was possible. He had to have. He must have thought there was some family he'd actually forgotten about having."

"Or that he didn't know about, Miguel. That is also, unfortunately, possible for men. At least for careless ones."

Miguel looked out over Socorro's head, at the old house and the attic where he'd once kept his shrine, and for a minute, he looked so old that it was frightening. "I don't want to be like that. And I'm afraid I could be. I almost…I ran… I said…"

"I was there. I know what you did, and what you said. I also know how far you were pushed _before_ that, and I know I let you down by allowing it. We all make mistakes. Don't expect perfection out of yourself." Enrique leaned over, putting his arms around Miguel, Socorro tucked between them. "I'm not afraid for you that way," he said. "If I ever would have been, I'm not anymore. I'm afraid of a lot of things -"

"Like what?" Miguel pulled gently out of the embrace, but stayed in a kind of curved shadow that Enrique cast.

"Like… not being able to understand you anymore. Or someone taking advantage of your good nature. Or some crazy fan - among the millions you'll have, of course - taking it into her head to fire a gun at you."

"A gun?"

"It's a crazy business. Look at Lennon. Or Selena. There are a lot of crazy people out there, and I have nightmares about them from time to time."

"Oh."

"So, I have fears. But none of them are about you forgetting who you are. You'll be a good man, Miguel. I have no doubts about that, and it makes me proud."

"I have a good teacher," he said, and smiled. "But I do want the old house. Socorro can have my room."

"You're very funny." They stood up and started back toward the ramshackle old cabins where Luisa would be waiting. "If you still want it when you finish at the conservatory… and no one else has a problem with it…"

"Really?"

"Really."

"Can I fix it up in the meantime? Just make it someplace we can use?"

Enrique considered asking him why, but he didn't think he had to. Miguel would probably feel obliged to come up with a deep and emotional reason, but he most likely just wanted to make his own mark on the hacienda, like everyone else had. That was, in Enrique's opinion, a good development.

They reached the door and went inside, to the shadowy, ceramic tiled breezeway that connected all of the old buildings and the new ones. Luisa was up and about - she and Rosa were in the mudroom measuring the windows for curtains. There was a pile of papers on the table, but Enrique assumed they were just Rosa's homework.

"…and she can have my old dolls," Rosa was saying. "I still have them in my trunk. Some of them were Tía Gloria's, and I think some were Abuelita's. I made them new clothes when I was learning to sew, though, so they'll only be a few years outdated."

Luisa, who habitually wore very old-fashioned clothes and thought that Rosa's fashion magazines were delightfully silly, rolled her eyes. "That's very nice of you."

"Well, I tried to give them to the twins, but… _boys_." She gave a long-suffering sigh.

Luisa looked up and noticed Enrique and Miguel at the door. "Speaking of boys, here are mine. Can I have the baby, Miguelito, or do you plan to keep her all day?"

"Maybe just until sunset," Miguel said, but didn't fight when Luisa undid the sling and took Socorro. "Fine." Miguel came into the room and glanced at Rosa's papers. "You should get the twins to play with your dolls. They could learn important skills about - " He stopped talking, his eyes wide. "Rosa, is this…?"

Rosa smiled broadly. "I wondered how long it would take you to notice that, primo. You're getting faster on the uptake."

Miguel picked up a smeary looking photocopy and his eyes scanned it up and down several times. "This is it! Look, Papá! Someone wrote about the act!"

He handed the paper over. Rosa had circled a brief article from a paper in Oaxaca City, dated 1915. It was only a few sentences, but they changed a lot.

_Ernesto de la Cruz, a native of nearby Santa Cecilia, delighted crowds in the plaza with his fine singing voice, in his duo act with fellow Santa Cecilian, Héctor Rivera. The duo performed amusing skits, danced, and sang original songs (penned by Rivera). They will perform in various venues this week only._

The newspaper went on with various society listings, and several obituaries. It would have been easily overlooked in a time before computers could scan for small mentions.

_The duo… sang original songs (penned by Rivera)._

"Penned by Rivera," Enrique read. "I wish it mentioned which songs."

Miguel threw open the shutters on the window and shouted to the street, "My prima Rosa is a genius!"

"I just know how to do a search," Rosa said. "It took a while to get it, though. The paper wasn't online. It's only been indexed so far. Someone up in the city had to find it on microfilm and copy it and send it to the school library. Sister Carolina was very excited. And…" She bit her lip. "There's something else. We have to find a record player."

"A record player?" Miguel repeated.

"Or someone who can make digital copies from really old vinyl."

Miguel was completely still. "You don't mean…"

"I completely _do_ mean. But I don't get any credit. Sister Carolina was interested in what I was doing, and she said she remembered something that had been in another nun's personal effects. I don't know who the nun was, but for some reason, she had…" Rosa moved the papers aside. Under them was an ancient looking cardboard box. It was plain, with a handwritten legend: "Songs for Imelda." In another hand - a very recognizable hand to anyone who'd gone through the books at the shoe shop - was written, "(and Héctor, who forgot to write his name again)".

"Could they have really made a record?" Luisa asked. "That wasn't easy so long ago."

"Sister Carolina looked into it. There was someone demonstrating them. The company name is on it. They were trying to convince people to buy record players, and they had a contest. In Santa Cecilia because she was the patron saint of music. There's a record of it. Mamá Imelda and Papá Hector won and so they recorded them as a demonstration."

Miguel stared at the box. "Why did the nuns have it?"

"A miracle," Luisa said. "No other explanation. Where can we find a record player?"

"Probably in the dump," Miguel said. "That's where I found my video player."

"Abel might know someone who can digitize it," Rosa offered. "He's got lots of friends who can do computer things."

"Or maybe someone who knows how to handle really old things," Enrique suggested. "Maybe at the Conservatory?"

But no one seemed willing to let the miraculous thing out of their sights.

Later, the adults would talk about how this news would change the upcoming hearing about custody of de la Cruz's guitar. They would discuss how to start breaking the news gently, so de la Cruz's fans wouldn't reject it out of hand. They would talk about the possibility of money, which would feel seedy and grubby, but which had to be addressed. They would look for the best ways to make sure the ancient record wasn't damaged in the process of listening to it, and they would start to think, tentatively, about how the family would handle the media scrutiny that was bound to follow a revelation about a beloved movie star.

But at that moment, it was the children's reaction that set the tone. Enrique put his arm around Luisa, who was cuddling Socorro. Rosa was beaming with pride. And Miguel just held the record, the concrete proof of his tale - and a chance to hear his beloved Papá Héctor's voice in the real world. He looked at it with wide, thankful eyes, tears brimming over the lower lids.

Then he set it down very carefully, went to Rosa, and hugged her with all his might.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

_No te amo por tu perfección.  
No te amo por tu actitud.  
No te amo por tu belleza.  
__Te amo porque eres tú._

_I don't love you because you are perfect  
I don't love you for things that you do  
I don't love you for grace or for beauty  
I love you because you are you_

The Heirloom Division of the Department of Family Reunions was in one of the top levels of the building, and the window gave a wide, high view of the endless city. (Well, maybe it wasn't endless; there was an ocean on one side, but on land, a century of wandering hadn't led Héctor to anything resembling a suburb, let alone a countryside.) He'd never had any reason to be here before, since no one recognized anything as belonging to him. Everything that had been in the house had been in Imelda's possession, and everything that had been with him on the road, as far as he'd known for most of his death, was lost.

"I never had anything contested," Imelda told him, leaning over nervously. "I don't know what we'll need to do."

Victoria rolled her eyes. "Given that de la Cruz all but admitted to murder in front of thousands of witnesses, I don't think we'll have trouble proving theft."

"Victoria took care of our legal business," Imelda said, with great pride.

"You were a lawyer?" Héctor asked. "I didn't know that."

"I took some public law classes at Benito Juarez. Not quite the same, but I did learn how lawyers think."

A door opened behind the reception desk, and a neat looking woman with gleaming white bones came out. "Héctor Rivera Esposito?" she called.

Héctor stood up, feeling a little shabby in comparison to both his family and this woman. "That's me. This is my wife and my granddaughter. If they're welcome to join us?"

"Yes, of course," the woman said impatiently. "I am Paloma Aguillar Montes. You have an issue with a guitar as I understand it." She turned and led the way into the office without looking back to see that they were following, and was talking before she turned around and sat down at her desk. "It's quite the scandal, of course. I wasn't at the Spectacular, but I've heard many people talking about it. So de la Cruz tried to murder your… grandson, was it?"

"Great-great-grandson," Héctor corrected, though he and Imelda, as often as not, just called Miguel a nieto, a grandson. This just seemed like a place to be more… specific.

"He _succeeded_ in murdering my husband," Imelda pointed out. "And stealing the guitar in question, which rightfully belongs to our family."

Beyond the window, Héctor saw two flying alebrijes circle each other playfully in the air. Pepita and Dante. It was reassuring. He hadn't seen them for a while, and wasn't sure where they'd gotten off to. Wherever it was, they were clearly working on Dante's flying skills. He still looked unbalanced and clumsy, but Héctor no longer thought he was about to tumble to the ground.

"There's nothing we can do about crimes in the land of the living," Paloma said brusquely. "If he was not convicted of your murder there, he can't be held guilty of it here. Those are the rules."

"What kind of crazy rule is that?" Imelda stood up and went to the window, and for a moment, Héctor had the idea that she was going to whistle for Pepita to come in here and cause some damage. But she didn't. "Are you saying that there will _never_ be justice for Héctor?"

"I am saying," Paloma went on, unconcerned, "that it is up to the living to extract such justice, because the crime was committed against him when he was living, and when he was in that world. The attack on your descendant here in the land of the dead, though… that, I believe, is going to be prosecuted. And the attempt on your afterlife at the cenote. But it isn't my department."

"The guitar," Héctor prompted. "I just want to make sure it belongs to our family. I want Miguel to have it."

"You can't control who your living family gives it to."

"They will give it to Miguel," Imelda said. "But we need to make sure it doesn't curse him again."

Paloma opened her file. "All right. So de la Cruz told two stories about his ownership of the guitar. The first was that it was found in a rubbish heap after having been discarded."

"What?" Héctor asked. "No, of course it wasn't, unless he threw it there after he killed me. Or if he dumped _me_ in a rubbish heap and then robbed me."

"Don't joke about that," Imelda said.

"Who's joking?"

Paloma seemed disinterested in this topic. "The other story, which appeared in a single, unauthorized biography, was that he bought it from a fellow musician who had to leave the country."

Imelda snorted. "That's what he told me became of the songbook."

"What did he tell you about the guitar?" Héctor asked.

"Lies about why you needed money."

"What lies?"

"_Lies_." She saw him gearing up to press. "You don't need them in your head."

"Imelda, I'm not a child."

She looked away, chastened. "Fine. I don't want them in _my_ head." She turned to Paloma. "Does it make a difference what the lie was if he never told it to anyone else?"

"No. It's a story no one remembers as true, so it has no effect on the ownership of the guitar."

"And the other two stories?" Victoria asked. "They're both false."

Paloma closed her file, and sighed deeply. "You know as well as I do that the rules of this world are the rules of living memory. All but the most gullible seem to have discarded belief that it was found. You see here, how faded this notion is?" She opened a second file folder. This showed the guitar, but it was almost invisible, like a photograph left out in the sun. Beneath it was another picture. "But the idea that he just bought a desirable instrument and made up a story about it? From the looks of this" - she pulled out a second, very clear image of the guitar - "people consider this quite properly cynical, and don't question it much."

"So what do we do?"

"Well, if the living can prove that there was no legal sale…"

"How would they do that after so many years?" Imelda asked.

"By proving the murder," Victoria said. "That's it, isn't it? Because he never played that guitar while Papá Héctor was alive, did he?"

"Of course not," Héctor said. "He asked for it once. He said that, as the lead, he should play the finer instrument, but I put my foot down on it, just like I did about the songs." He looked at Imelda apologetically. "I used to sing Coco's song in hotel rooms or backstage, every night at eight-thirty. Ernesto heard it many times. He kept saying how we should spice it up for shows. Maybe if I'd agreed…"

"Oh, no," she said. "Don't start that. It belonged to you and Coco to do what you wanted with. He stole it."

"The point," Victoria said, "was that if the living can prove that he killed you before he showed up with your guitar, then that will change the ownership." She looked at Paloma. "Is that right?"

"Mostly. There will still be people who disagree, but as de la Cruz has no known heirs, no one would have grounds to protest it." She reconsidered. "Maybe the historians. Historians control many artifacts."

"So that's what they could do in the land of the living," Victoria said. "But here…there's something here, isn't there."

"There always is. It's usually what this office does."

"What are we talking about?" Héctor asked.

"De la Cruz can willingly relinquish it."

"What?" Imelda put her hands on her hips and began to pace. "You expect us to beg my husband's murderer to graciously give us what he stole?"

"Can it be compelled?" Victoria asked.

"What he stole in the middle of a _murder_?" Imelda went on. "How is that right?"

For the first time, Paloma looked at least a little alarmed. "I -"

"You tell the people in charge that it is _not_ his to relinquish. He has no right to it in the first place! I won't ask that snake for anything! He has nothing to relinquish. He - "

Héctor took her hand. "Te amo. But let's talk about this. Let the lady tell us what we need to do."

"Uh… yes." Paloma looked cautiously at Imelda then shuffled her papers pointlessly. "Well, we can set up a hearing. The evidence from the Spectacular can be used as a confession of wrongdoing."

"Maybe we can set him to talking," Victoria suggested. "Didn't you say he wrote a whole movie about murdering you, Papá Héctor?" Héctor nodded. "Well, he apparently likes to brag. Maybe we can set him bragging."

"Y-yes," Paloma stumbled. "Yes, I'll set a date for it. You prepare what you can. Learn what you need to. And…" She looked at Imelda. "Señora, may I suggest that you _not_ lose your temper? The judges don't take kindly to shouting."

Imelda made a frustrated noise, but agreed. Paloma pulled out her calendar, and negotiated with Victoria for a convenient hearing date while Imelda fumed and Héctor sat uselessly in a corner. Finally, it was time to go. They were almost at the main exit when Imelda said, "This is ridiculous. How can he have any claim on it at all?"

"Memories, Mamá Imelda," Victoria said patiently.

"Héctor, I'm so sorry." Imelda pushed the rotating door open and led them out into the strange, weak sunlight of the land of the dead. "I never should have let him intimidate me. Lawsuit! Why did I care about a lawsuit? He had no right to the guitar, or the songs, and if I'd pushed it, maybe…"

"Imelda," Héctor said, "I forgive you for that. Please forgive yourself for it."

She stopped and blinked a few times, then just said, "Thank you. But I can't. I don't have the right, not until I've fixed it." Then she started storming toward the main street below. Héctor and Victoria had to speed up to catch her.

"Where are you going?" he asked when he reached her.

"I don't know."

Victoria ran up. "Let the office handle a hearing," she said.

"I want to do more than that," Imelda said. "I want to do something… anything." She slashed her hand through the air. "I don't want other people to handle it."

"If you do something, you could get in trouble," Victoria said. "I'm just saying. Remember Lorenzo Tiborcia? You lost your temper at him about-"

"-about that shipment of rotted leather he sent, I remember."

"And instead of taking it to the courts, you took it to him, and _you_ ended up having to pay damages."

"You talked me out of most of them, mija."

"By the skin of my teeth. I don't have skin anymore."

Imelda clenched her jaw and stared blindly down an alley.

Héctor put a hand on her shoulder, then looked at Victoria. "Would you mind, mija? I want to talk to your grandmother."

Victoria obviously wanted to continue making a convincing argument, but she'd been raised to respect her elders, even the ones who looked two decades younger than she did. "All right, then. But talk _sense_ to her, Papá Héctor."

She gave Imelda a quick kiss on the cheek, then headed out to the street and got lost in a crowd of people walking toward Ahuitzotl Plaza. Héctor watched until he was sure she wasn't about to double back, then led Imelda into the alley, where she sat down miserably on an old crate. He sat down beside her and smiled. "This is like old times," he said. "Remember that alley behind the theater? Remigio Mireles used to run a dice game back there."

"Those dice were loaded."

"How else was he going to make a living at it?" He took her hand and held it in both of his. "What do you need, Imelda?"

"A hundred years back. Or just one minute. One minute to run after you in the rain and hold you and tell you that I loved you, instead of throwing… whatever it was I threw."

"You threw something at me?"

"It might have been my shoe. Or a handful of mud. You didn't notice?"

"I was trying to be brave and not look over my shoulder. I want a minute to look over my shoulder. I don't think I'd have been able to go if I had." He pulled her hand up and kissed it. "But we can't have that minute, either of us. We have to keep going forward."

She took her hand away and slipped her arms around him. "I can't even love you properly here. Do you know how much I want - "

"Yes." He smiled. "We could take a few days to ourselves. See if some honeymoon train shows up. I wonder how far we could get. We could… I don't know. Find new ways to love each other."

"I've never heard of anyone taking a vacation here. Where would we even go?"

"I don't know. If houses show up when we need them, then why not a tropical island with coconuts and flower crowns?" A tune crossed his mind, and he sang, "Te llevaré al mar, mi amor, donde puedes ser mi amor…"

She kissed him. "I don't know if it works like that," she said. "But let's try. After we take care of this guitar business."

"It sounds like most of it is up to Miguel."

"Everyone else had best be helping him." Imelda sighed. "Elena's pretty formidable when she decides to be. Hopefully, she'll get to work intimidating whoever needs it."

"Why was she so strict about your rule?" Héctor asked.

"She gave up her first love for it. Or at least the boy she _thought_ she loved. I thought he was an idiot. Franco was a much better choice. That first boy was a performer."

"Like me?"

"More like Ernesto. Probably not a murderer. But he loved his audiences. When Elena told him our rules, he told her it didn't matter, because she'd be leaving us anyway. She'd never have to deal with her crazy abuelita again."

"What?"

She nodded. "He said it right in front of me. And not quite so nicely. I believe he said, 'You'll be out of the madhouse, and this crazy old bruja will be out of your life for good.'"

"Is he dead? If he is, I'll deal with _that_…"

"Elena already punched him in the face. Then she shoved him out into the street and slammed the door. She never talked about him again. I think after that, it was just her test of whether or not anyone was worthy."

"And the one she did end up marrying?"

"Franco Rivera. That's how we got the name back. He fell in love with her for her cowboy boots, and was always an entirely sensible human being. I approve of him." She smiled. "You'll see him on Día de los Muertos. You can't miss him. He's tiny. I think he liked her cowboy boots because they had big heels. But he's a good sort."

"Coco likes him, too. Elena loves him?"

"Oh, yes, very much. Not everyone is lucky enough to have their first love be their best one. Franco is a better fit. Questions of music and my relative sanity aside, Elena would not have been happy with a man who thought he could order her around."

"And Victoria… did she have anyone?"

"Oh, there were boys. She came of age in the 1960s. It was a different world from ours. Not long before I died, I read about a play in New York where young people took off their clothes on stage and sang about… things we would not have admitted _knowing_ about in public. It did not present me with a good argument in favor of the art." She smiled slyly. "But the tunes were catchy."

Héctor grinned and nudged her a little. "Someone was listening to them, was she? Breaking the sacred ban?"

"Well, they were playing in many places. Hard to avoid. The children all had radios - do you know radios?"

"I've seen them here."

"Well, everyone had one, unless they lived in my house. They were always blasting songs out the windows. It was hard to go shopping without hearing their music. Rock-and-roll, they called it."

"I've heard it in the plaza. Stronger stuff, too."

"Do you like it?"

"Not my style, but some of it's not half-bad."

She nodded, though Héctor wasn't sure whether it was an agreement, or just her general expectation that he'd give whatever kind of music he heard a chance. "Anyway," she said, "Victoria had her boyfriends, but that was all. Elena was the one who carried on the family."

"Who are Riveras again."

"Yes." Imelda shrugged. "Any orphan they couldn't find a name for got named after Father Rivera, just like we did. So the town's full of Riveras to marry. Maybe Gloria will find one, too."

There was a pleasant lull after this, and Héctor leaned against the wall, letting Imelda rest against him. He took a deep breath, then asked, "Imelda… _what_ did Ernesto tell you about the guitar? I know you didn't believe him, but… I need to know what he said. What hurt you."

She closed her eyes, and he thought she might refuse to answer, but she finally did. "He said there was a woman."

"Of course he did. There wasn't."

"I know. He also said that the woman… was in trouble. And you sold him the guitar to pay for someone to… well, to make sure you weren't trapped by another baby. I did not, I _never_ believed this. Please believe me about that."

"I do believe you," Héctor said automatically, trying to process the magnitude of the lie. Of course Imelda hadn't believed it, and Ernesto would have known she wouldn't. It was the audience she'd been jealous of, not other women. So why tell her something like that?

Oh, but that was easy. Tell a huge, glaring lie first, and then when you back off, the victim thinks you're "finally" telling the truth. In Imelda's case, he'd probably had a whole string of lies to tell before he got to the one he meant for her to really believe.

Héctor had never been averse to telling small lies when it was useful, but he'd drawn the line at hurtful ones, or personal ones at all. Ernesto had thrived on the personal ones, especially to women, who he generally held in contempt. But _this_ one, to Imelda… about him, about a baby, about how he'd felt trapped…

"I never felt trapped," he said. "Not with you and Coco. I felt trapped in the damned tour. Home was where I was free. Where I was a man, not just Ernesto's boy sidekick."

Imelda nodded. "I know. I do. But you were so young, and you were so talented, and I did try to keep you from your music, and…"

"And that's the part you believed? That I left you because I felt trapped… because you… Oh, Imelda."

"I don't know. He said so many things. He said I was too mannish, and I tried to be head of your house, and you told him the truth in private, because men were more honest with each other and…" She sighed. "I knew it was crazy talk. Even angry at you, I knew it. But it got inside my head. That you would have stayed with me if I hadn't been a bad wife."

"Look at me," Héctor said, putting his finger on her jaw and turning her face to his. "Look at me and believe me. You were my life. You and Coco. I squandered it by walking away that morning, but I _never_ thought of our life together as anything but… but what I was _meant_ for. Do you believe me?"

For a long time, she looked at him, and he could see in her eyes that she thought he was just trying to charm her, so he said nothing. She always believed him more when he didn't talk. Finally she nodded, and he pulled her to him, holding her as well as he could.

After a long time, he let go. "I want to know what he really wanted you to believe. In the end. What was the bottom lie, to cover up for killing me? Where did he say I'd gone?"

"North," she said. "He said you crossed the border to make a living in New York. That you were going to change your name to something Anglo to fit in. He said the last time he saw you was in Tijuana, and he was putting you on a train going north and… Héctor?"

Héctor sat up straight, then put his head in his hands, thinking as hard as he could. "A train going north," he repeated.

"Yes…"

"It _was_ the train station," he said. "Not in Tijuana, of course, we never made it that far, but it _was_ another train station where I died. I had a ticket to go south, but there were lots of trains there. Freight trains. What if he told the truth? What if the last he saw of me, he put me on a train going north? I wouldn't have been found anywhere I was supposed to be! No one would have known who I was!"

"Héctor, that's terrible…"

"And that means that if Miguel… if the living are trying to prove what happened, if that's what they have to do to get the guitar back, then they're looking in the wrong place."

"We need to get word to them!"

"Imelda, I tried for years…"

"There has to be something. The alebrijes! They can cross! Pepita watched for Coco, she told us when it was time to come to the bridge. And Dante, Miguel will know Dante came from us…"

"They can't talk, though."

She held up her hand, then got up and started pacing in the alley. "Stop being negative. We can do this. You heard Miguel's song. We can make him hear us."

"I don't know how specific that can be." Héctor thought about it. "Maybe Dante could carry a letter?"

"I don't think so. Everything here is a ghost like us. It might disappear when he crossed." They looked at each other, the idea of the ghost picture they'd risked Miguel's life to send probably going through both of their minds now. But Imelda didn't get sidetracked. "Maybe we can do something with Dante himself. Call him."

"Me?"

"He's your alebrije."

"I thought he was Miguel's."

"Maybe he will be someday, but right now, you're the one who needs an alebrije. He's Miguel's dog."

Héctor went to the end of the alley and looked up. Pepita and Dante were still flying nearby, Pepita with giant, graceful swoops of her huge body, Dante with ungainly little somersaults in the air.

"Dante!" Héctor called. "Come on, boy!"

With a delighted yip that Héctor could hear even this far away, Dante rolled and plummeted toward the ground. Pepita glided behind him, landing with a majestic clang and putting out one wing to soften Dante's landing. Of course, she was too big for the alley, so she just curled up at the end while Dante bounded in and jumped on Héctor - a move that would have disconnected his bones a few months ago, but now just rattled him a little. He licked Héctor's face avidly and gave out more joyful yips.

Héctor scratched behind his ears. "Hey, boy, good to see you. You've been off practicing haven't you?"

This got a wide dog-smile and a kind of nod that made Héctor wonder exactly how much Dante understood.

"Would you like to see Miguel?" Imelda asked him.

This idea was so welcome that it caused Dante to jump up and down, finally doing a midair flip, his little wings beating wildly at the sky.

"Great," Héctor said. "But… what do we mean to send him with?"

Imelda frowned in concentration, then, with a dawning light in her eyes, she said, "I have an idea!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

_March 2, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
Rosa found an amazing thing - a nun saved a recording of Mamá Imelda and Papá Héctor singing together! Tía Carmen drove Rosa and me back to the capital, and my tutor, Carlos, found a way to play it and re-record it digitally. That's on the computer. I don't know how much of that you know about. But he needed to use a special record player that we couldn't get in Santa Cecilia (though I guess you must have had one once), and we didn't want to mail it to him. So we made the trip up. Carlos says it will be part of his doctoral thesis. He's going to write about how de la Cruz's songs had a different songwriter, and he knows who it was. We listened for hours, to the same song, and Carlos taught me about phrases to listen to in the music. Now I have to listen to the de la Cruz versions (which doesn't feel really good, you know?) to see where I can spot the phrases._

_Carlos is going to say I helped with his thesis, but I don't care about that. I'm really doing it! I'm proving it! We have your letters to prove the lyrics, and this record to prove the music. It has an older version of Poco Loco on it! Mamá Imelda sings her verse, too, about how Papá Héctor makes _her_ crazy. It's really exciting, and now the whole family has heard them sing._

_That's pretty much all I've been thinking about. But I'm doing other things, too. Papá wants me to keep up with my running, so I joined the team at school. It's probably good to stay healthy. And I took a math test. Do you want to know something strange? I did better at it than I ever did before! There's a lot of math in music writing… I guess I've been getting practice._

_Socorro is bigger now. She grows really fast. She can hold onto her own toes and I sometimes see her trying to dance, even though Mamá says she's really just trying to get rid of gas. Abel says dancing's good for that, so maybe we're both right! I'm making her a lullaby about how everyone in the family loves her. Your verse will be about how you listen better than anyone else. Mine will have dragons in it, I think. I'm her big brother, so I have to save her from something. I'm almost done with the other song. I just have to do the accordion part for Abel._

_I am feeling happier. I still miss you. But I am almost happy enough to go out and sing in the plaza. Maybe I'll do it for my birthday next week, if they'll let me. I have one fancy shirt, and my botines. I guess it will have to do. I did perform in a hoodie and jeans in the Plaza de la Cruz. I really hope they've changed the name now! Of course, I don't even have the hoodie anymore. Oh, well. At least I won't just be in my undershirt!_

_All the best to everyone, and let Papá Héctor and Mamá Imelda know that they have a fan club now._

_Love,  
Miguel_

The children were in bed, though Enrique could hear the scratchy sound of the old recording playing from the open window in Abel's room again. This had surprised him at first. Of all of the children, Abel was the one he'd considered least likely to take an interest in old-fashioned music sung by dead ancestors. He had revealed during the family's first awkward conversations about what music they'd pretended not to be listening to that he admired hip-hop and something called "death metal" - no one really wanted to know what that was - and was generally more interested in sports and girls than any of the family history that had come up recently. But when Miguel, Rosa, and Carmen had come home from their weekend trip to Mexico City, bearing the digitized version of the old record (as well as the record itself), Abel had listened in utter fascination. He said he was going to make a video of it, and was certainly spending a good amount of time with a scan of the old family photograph and an animation program on his computer. He might even be working on it now, just as Miguel was certainly working on Socorro's lullaby and Rosa was up reading the trashy novel everyone pretended not to know she owned.

But they were in bed, and they wouldn't be coming back out, which meant that certain things could be discussed more freely. And that Enrique could get some work done on Miguel's birthday present. He'd already applied the fabric to the hat form, which he'd made in a shop on the far side of the plaza, where an old school friend had the equipment. ("Hey, the Riveras aren't going to start cutting into my business, are they?" he'd asked anxiously.) It was the same fabric Luisa was using on the suit, so it would be a perfect match. Velvet would have been more like the other mariachis, but it didn't seem Miguel's style.

"This is going to be a hornet's nest," Berto said without preliminaries, as he came into the workshop and sat at his usual station. "He's got fan clubs all over the country. People fell in love over his songs. They've been playing at abuelitos' anniversary dinners for decades. No one is going to like this much, other than us. I think we'd better prepare for broken windows, slashed tires, graffiti… it could get ugly fast. _If_ we go public."

"I don't think there's an 'if' anymore," Enrique said. He spread out the pants Luisa had made and studied her embroidery. He was planning to echo the motif on the brim of the hat. There wouldn't be a lot of overdesigned elements on it. Like a Rivera shoe, this would be a clean design. A gold band around the crown, and the echoed element on the brim. And it would not be glued on applique. He planned to actually stitch it. He started with a fabric pencil. Better to plan first.

"There _is_ an if," Gloria said. She was at her usual spot at the storefront window, though it was shuttered for the night and she was facing into the room. "I know you've got your head in this, Quique, but we don't _have_ to do anything. What do we owe him, anyway?"

"After almost a century of slandering him? When it turns out that he was murdered?" Enrique said. "I don't know, Glorita. Maybe _everything_?"

No one suggested that they didn't know he'd been murdered, not for sure. If there had been any lingering doubts about Miguel's story, the newspaper clipping and the record seemed to have quelled them. An email from Dionisio Calles had confirmed the date of the ink on the letters, and Héctor's signature from the marriage record, which no one had doubted, but which certainly solidified the claim, at least on the lyrics. Proving the music would be a bit harder. Proving the murder and the theft of the guitar… on that, they were no closer. Calles had spent three days in the deep and dusty archives and found no unidentified cases in Mexico City that fit the profile. The signatures on the typewritten letters were still in analysis. ("My expert is pretty sure they're forgeries, but if it was de la Cruz, they were long-time business partners, and if they were like any other business partners, they probably signed a few things for one another. It's a dubious practice, but a common one. The signature is slightly off by size and the accent over the 'e' is in a suspicious place compared to the known signatures. There's also an oddity in the 'o,' but there aren't hesitation marks or blots. We're hoping to get some samples of de la Cruz's writing to compare the e's and o's.")

"I'm just saying," Gloria went on, not quite meeting anyone's eyes. "_We_ didn't do it. _We_ didn't make up the stories. And we're the ones who are going to have to put up with vandalism and angry de la Cruz fans if we do this."

"We let it go on, mija," Mamá said. "I did, especially. And even if we don't owe my abuelo - which we do - I owe Miguel."

"Miguel forgave you for the guitar," Luisa told her, putting her free hand on Mamá's arm. (The other arm was cradling Socorro, who was having an evening snack.)

"I'm going to get the real one for him. To make up for what I did. I know how much work that was for him."

Carmen, who was usually even quieter than Luisa, cleared her throat and said something that Enrique didn't quite hear.

Berto leaned over and whispered to her.

She took a deep breath and raised her voice a little bit. "I said, it doesn't have to be us." She looked around. "We do the work," she clarified. "We make sure it happens. But at the Conservatorio, I talked to young Carlos while he was making the recording. He could break it as his thesis. Moreno could leak it to the papers. Do it entirely separate from us. If we do it, it could look to de la Cruz fans like we're trying to get money or fame or something. But if he does it, and then people just ask us questions and we answer them, not like we're _trying_ to prove anything…"

"I feel like we should take whatever consequences there are," Mamá said. "I don't like backing off from a fight."

"Me, either," Berto said.

Luisa smiled. "I don't think anyone will accuse you of cowardice, Mamá Elena."

Mamá and Berto both grumbled under their breath. Enrique smiled. If there was a back-to-normal in the family, this was it. Mamá was gearing up for righteous war; Berto was preparing a defense.

"I think it's a good idea," Enrique said. "From what Miguel said, Papá Héctor wasn't looking to be a glory hound. He just wanted to be remembered. If Carlos releases his paper and we answer questions, we'll look… well, it will seem less predatory to people determined to see the worst. And I don't know about you, but I'm not after fame for him. Just the truth." He copied the pattern around another arc of the hat. "And, if you want a practical reason, Carlos will sound more disinterested. We have a hearing in three weeks, against the historical society. If we go in as shoemakers who found some old letters, they'll balk. If a doctoral student at the national conservatory says that his student presented him with reasonable proof of a theory he's been working on for years, it will go over better."

"Meanwhile," Gloria said, "Berto's not wrong. We need to brace for this. We need to check all the locks on the outer doors, and be ready to paint over anything - "

"Preferably before the children see it," Luisa said.

"And what about school?" Berto asked. "Are they going to get any backlash at school?"

"Probably," Enrique said. "We should prepare them for it. And we should also prepare them for people who are just curious, and people trying to take their pictures, and… and I want to talk to the police about keeping an eye out for the crazies."

No one argued with this, or even seemed surprised, so Enrique guessed that they'd all done a little bit of reading over the last few months.

"All right," Gloria said. "For the hearing with the historical society, we need to get someone to prove that the torn picture all fits together, and it's not a fake. That's enough to prove that de la Cruz didn't randomly find the guitar somewhere. And I'm willing to bet there's no bill of sale. That _may_ be enough."

"Don't count on it," Berto said. "People flock to the tomb. It brings in money. They're not going to want to give up the tourist dollars."

Gloria ground her teeth. "I could do a sales job on it for them if we could prove everything. We could… I don't know, put up a little museum here." She knocked on the shopfront window cover. "If it were all proven, and it was in the newspapers, then the tourists could all come and see it. They'd still be in Santa Cecilia, and so would their money."

"I think you're underestimating the town," Luisa said. She had apparently fed Socorro all she had, and was now wrapping her in her blankets. "Our people are good people. Even if the old women in the historical society are wringing their hands about the money, I think they'll want to do what's right. Maybe we shouldn't go into this with our fists up. Maybe we should just tell them what we've found out."

"Yes, I'm sure they'll accept word from the land of the dead," Berto muttered.

"Not that," Luisa admitted. "I think we need to keep that in the family, or they'll just call us crazy. But no one was more bitterly disappointed than Miguel. He idolized de la Cruz more than any of them. When he found out… well, let's say, when he found de la Cruz's guitar in a photo, and Mamá Coco showed him whose face belonged there…" She shrugged. "I think that if we tell them about that, then they'll understand that it hurt us to admit it, as much as it will hurt them. And finding out that it was Papá Héctor that he stole things from…"

Enrique could tell that Mamá didn't like the idea of asking for sympathy and talking about having been hurt. Luisa was probably right, but it would take time to convince the more belligerent members of the family to play it that way. And he didn't think he'd ever get Miguel himself to admit how hurt he was by the news that de la Cruz was a fake; he considered it the least important part of what he learned. He wanted to prove the murder and the theft, not admit that it was painful to lose an idol.

But he wasn't the only one who'd lose an idol in this business in the long run, and the rest of the country would find much less comfort in proving Papá Héctor's murder. If anything, they'd be even more hurt. Enrique thought of the old women who'd had fond schoolgirl crushes on de la Cruz, or who had discovered their first loves to the tune of his guitar, and he thought of Mamá Coco waking up that morning as she heard its chords. For her, it was the truth of the guitar, but the music was a powerful undercurrent. What about the millions whose lives had been wound through with the songs, with the voice, with the guitar… the ones who would wake up to a truly horrible truth? It wouldn't be redemptive for them. It would just be a blow to the heart. If the family went in swinging, they would defend themselves like trapped animals.

And all practical concerns aside, he wanted to soften the blow to them as much as he could. They weren't responsible for any of it. De la Cruz had lied to the world, and they had believed the lie. His fans were victims, too.

He didn't say this. Luisa would understand, but he couldn't see Berto and Mamá caring much about such a triviality. Not because they were hard-hearted, or because they wouldn't understand how much of a person's self was tied up in memories, but because they simply would never really have a grasp on how central music _was_ to most people's memories. Attacking the songs, attacking de la Cruz… they would feel it as an attack on their very selves.

The pencil in his hand snapped, and he realized he'd been getting progressively angrier at de la Cruz. What had he thought he was playing at? What had he done to the people whose hearts he'd coveted so much that he'd killed for them? He had hurt the family directly in the past, but he'd also hurt Miguel with the ongoing lie, and Enrique couldn't think how to heal _that_ hurt, not least because the world treated it like it wasn't important. Why hadn't he just been the decent person he pretended to be? How hard was it to just be a relatively decent human being? Why hadn't he just commissioned Papá Héctor to write him some new songs, and given him credit? He could have even sounded magnanimous about it - _Ah, yes, my songwriter… I would be nothing without him!_

Luisa passed him a new fabric pencil with no comment.

He carefully rubbed out a smear on the hat brim, took a deep breath, and said, "I'll talk to the police in the morning, and see what they think." He smiled bitterly. "Hopefully, the police aren't de la Cruz fans."

They talked a while longer without reaching any conclusions. Enrique stayed up after most of them had gone to bed, working on the golden designs around Miguel's new hat.

The next afternoon, he went to the police department and talked to a young woman named Sarita about security. She told him that he was worrying about nothing, and no one would care about such a very old scandal. "But of course, if there are incidents, you should call us."

This did not entirely set his mind at ease.

When he finished up, he checked his phone and found another message from Calles.

_No word yet, my friend. I think I've gone through every unidentified body from 1921 in Mexico City, at least the ones that the police picked up. Nothing looks like your bisabuelo. I'm going to expand the search to the outlying areas. But we knew it was a long shot. Don't tell your boy, but I'm starting to wonder if de la Cruz found a way to dispose of the body that would have left it unidentifiable. It's not a nice thing to think about, but if your theory is true, then the man was a sociopath, and nothing is out of bounds. If I find out anything really unpleasant (other than the murder; often with this kind of murder, the most unpleasant things happen afterward), I'll tell you first. You'll know better than I how to talk to your son about it._

_Meanwhile, do you have anything else about their tour plans? I didn't spot a real pattern in the letters. It looks like de la Cruz was just adding any performance he could, even if it was just yanking the two of them around the country in random directions. If anything, he seems to have been trying to get here to the capital - he keeps returning to the region - but that doesn't seem to be leading us anywhere useful._

_I'm trying to get into the studio. You mentioned that Miguel's birthday is coming up, and if I can, I will find film from the audition the letters talked about. That would be happy for him._

_I have a few other cases needing attention right now, but I am working on yours still. Let's call it my passion project. I hope to have something for you soon._

_Dionisio Calles Shaughnessy_

Enrique sighed. He hadn't expected anything else. There was nothing more in the pattern of the tour. Rosa had found a few more notices in the paper, but by then, de la Cruz was apparently more careful. Héctor was still with him, but the songs were referred to as "their" original songs, not Héctor's.

They needed new information. Something to open up a new path.

He sent a quick reply: _Thank you for all of your work. We're doing everything we can here; I'll send you anything we find right away._

He checked his watch. School was almost out. On a whim, he turned away from home and headed across the plaza. The statue of de la Cruz cast a shadow over the path, and he deliberately walked out of his way so as not to pass through it. Stupid, perhaps, but he felt better having taken even a stupid concrete action.

The school was no longer connected to the church, but it occupied the same building it always had, just beyond the church's dusty parking lot. Everything was still quiet. Five minutes until the doors opened and released children in every direction. And the church itself was weekday-afternoon quiet, with only elderly women coming and going to light their candles and confess their sins.

"Enrique?"

He looked up. Luisa's father, who kept the church grounds as well as looking after the cemetery, was looking at him over the top of a little shrub. His clippers were held steady.

"Papá Isidro," Enrique said. "This is a nice surprise."

"I'm where I belong," he said. "I think I should be surprised. How is Luisa?"

"Stronger every day."

"And the baby?"

"Healthy and loud."

He smiled and nodded. "You came to meet Miguelito?"

"I was out doing other things. I thought I'd walk home with the children."

"Well, they'll come by here. They usually do." He grinned and held up a bag of sweets. "I bribe them."

Enrique laughed. Isidro wasn't an old man. In fact, he was as close to Enrique's age as Luisa was - twelve years in either direction. His dark skin was weathered from a lifetime outside, but his hair was still mostly black, and he kept it long, tying it at the base of his neck with a leather clip. He wore a cowboy hat, and had little silver-framed glasses that flashed in the sun. He didn't look especially like Miguel, but his sly little grin about the sweets was almost exactly the same as the one Miguel flashed when he was trying to get away with something.

"You'll be at the birthday party next week?" Enrique asked.

"It's the biggest social event on my calendar." He poked at the shrub. "Miguel has been asking me about my ancestors. He wants pictures for your ofrenda."

"Do you have any? They'd mean a lot to him."

"I'm putting together an album for him from what I have. Pictures. Stories I remember. I talked to my parents, too."

"How are they enjoying their travels?"

"They're too old for camping trips." He rolled his eyes. "But at least they have their phones. Mamá is going to send a letter with everything she ever heard anyone say about her ancestors. We don't _have_ many pictures, though. We didn't have a lot of handy cameras up in the hills." He glanced toward the line of hills where he'd grown up. "We put other things on ofrendas. I have my grandfather's teponaztli. I thought he might like that, with this new music business."

"I'm sure he would."

"Now that it's _allowed._" He flashed Miguel's sly grin again.

"Ha-ha."

"Your nephew - the big one?"

"Abel?"

"Yes. He plays with these computer graphics a lot. Maybe we can make a picture from what I remember of my grandparents."

"I wonder if that would work."

Isidro raised his eyebrows. "Work?"

"For ancestors crossing over."

He nodded wisely, and Enrique wondered if Miguel had told him everything. It was possible - the man was his grandfather, and, as a gravedigger, was well-versed in the tales of the dead. But he didn't think so. They were fond of each other, but not especially close.

A bell interrupted the conversation, and the doors to the school flew open, children running out gleefully. Enrique looked into the sea of school uniforms (white shirts, gray slacks or skirts), trying to find Miguel and Rosa. It didn't take long. Miguel had his guitar case over his shoulder, and he was following the little knot of girls Rosa played with. Rosa was laughing madly at something one of the girls had said. Miguel, though a year younger, looked more serious. He had the far off look on his face that Enrique was learning to associate with trying to work out some musical problem. He didn't have a group of his own friends, which was troubling. Enrique remembered going everywhere with his friends at the age of twelve.

But before he could get too upset about it, three other boys ran down the stairs, one leaping a bush like a hurdle, and jostled Miguel. Miguel smiled, and they talked about something (Enrique couldn't hear what), and parted on reasonably good terms. They were other runners, he thought. The team. Miguel _was_ involved in his school life. At least a little bit. And he didn't seem unhappy, just a little bit separate.

Miguel spotted him before Rosa did, and raised his hand in a surprised wave. He reached through the crowd of girls (one of whom gave him an unmistakably flirtatious grin; Enrique thought he'd have a few more years before needing to worry about _that_) and tapped Rosa's shoulder.

They swerved to change course, and made a beeline over to the church. Isidro gave them both candy. Miguel gave him a little hug.

"Papá!" Miguel said, coming over to Enrique. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I was out, and I thought I'd come walk you home, if you don't have any other plans."

"No, that's…" Miguel's voice trailed away, and his gaze went to the church. A skinny xolo dog was slinking around the corner. A little stray cat that Enrique had seen around town for years was right beside him. The two seemed friendly, which was, in Enrique's experience, not the normal order of the world for stray animals.

"Miguel?" Enrique prodded.

Miguel frowned deeply and took a step toward them. "Dante?" he called.

The dog bounded out and jumped on him, covering his face with kisses. In the sunlight, Enrique could see something red tied around the dog's neck.

Miguel collapsed under the dog's assault, and fell to the ground, laughing. "Dante! Boy, what are you -" He stopped. "What's that, boy? What… PAPÁ!"

Enrique ran over, alarmed. Miguel had steadied the dog, and was tugging at the red thing around its neck.

It was a hoodie, Miguel's old one, the one he'd lost on Día de Muertos, but it was mangled. The white stripes had been torn from the sleeves, and the drawstring was gone from the hood. The sleeves had been used to secure it to Dante's neck.

"What…?" Enrique began.

Then Miguel managed to get the knot undone, and he laid the jacket on the ground.

For a moment, Enrique didn't understand what he was seeing, even though it was completely plain.

The piping from the sleeves had been repurposed, cut up into new shapes, and sewn back onto the wide back of the jacket, using what looked like thread unraveled from the drawstring, as if…

As if they had to use only materials that came from the jacket, because nothing else would make the crossing.

He blinked.

The shapes weren't random.

They were letters. Words. There was one large word, and beneath it, made with thinner strips, three smaller ones. And there was an arrow, pointing up.

Beside the arrow was the larger word: TRÉN.

And the smaller words, put on there with tiny strips of the remaining piping, sewn on even though they must have been running out of their improvised thread: ESTOY BIEN MIJO.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

_Tenía solo dieciocho cuando vendió su alma  
Para la bruja de luces  
y la multitud del diablo  
Tenía solo dieciocho pero lo conocía bien:  
El potente aplauso  
que lo sedujo y mató_

_He was only eighteen when he sold his soul  
To the witch of the lights  
and the hot devil-crowd  
He was only eighteen, but he knew it too well:  
The heady applause  
and the still-living shroud_

The last time Héctor had needed to get into Ernesto's absurd mansion, he'd borrowed one of Ceci's Frida costumes and lied his non-existent (yet oddly functional) lips off. He'd made it onto the tram before the makeup started peeling off, but it had been a close thing. Even when he'd gotten all the way to the top, it had been another long stretch of low stairs before he could reach the door, and inside the cavernous house, it had taken him ten minutes to find Miguel and Ernesto.

He had felt very much alone, even though he'd been dodging the security guards. He hadn't dared take off the costume, for fear that leaving it somewhere would be like a breadcrumb trail leading straight to him before he could reach Miguel.

This time, he wasn't alone, and he wasn't wearing a dress, both of which were vast improvements. Imelda had sewn his clothes more securely, though no cloth had appeared for new clothes for him. She said she hoped the family would think to leave him some. In the meantime, though, she'd taken the remaining sleeve off of his old jacket and sewn the rest in to a perfectly decent vest. She'd clucked a bit about how these clothes couldn't possibly have fit him when he was alive, that his performing outfits had been perfectly sewn and this jacket had obviously not been his own, and de la Cruz had clearly managed to change him out of his identifiable uniform before he died completely, and…

Héctor had let it flow over him. Her anger on his behalf was somehow enough to quell his own at the thought of having been manhandled while he was unconscious and dying, and stripped of his good clothes - his _recognizable_ good clothes, the tan charro suit he'd been wearing… Ernesto must have found the ill-fitting purple jacket and raggedy patched pants he'd arrived here in, and shoved him in them as his heart was beating its last rhythms. That must have been how his arm bone had originally cracked, though it hadn't fully broken for several years. It had been fine when he'd fainted, but fractured when he'd arrived at Marigold Grand Central. This had never occurred to him as something strange. Many people arrived with skeletal injuries more severe than a fracture, but the memories of their loved ones healed them quickly. No one had healed his fracture, and it had grown over the years instead of sealing itself. But he hadn't given it any thought. He'd had more important things to think about than a fractured arm and a too-small suit. A moment's thought on that might have changed things a lot.

Or it might not have. What would he have done about it if he _had_ realized that Ernesto had altered his body, and why he might have done that? Gone and complained? To who?

He shook his head. The clothes were better now. The pants had been patched and stitched. And he wore his new, shiny shoes with great pride. He looked as respectable as it was possible to look with a few bones still taped together (he supposed it was too late for them to magically heal now; he'd have to get by with bracing them). No more stupid costume just to get around.

And Coco was with him. She didn't have any good reason to be. In fact, she thought the entire visit would be a waste of time, which Héctor also believed in his heart of hearts, though he wanted to give it a try. But she'd wanted to be with him, and that was enough for Héctor. That made even more of a difference than his repaired clothing, though she was still stuck in her slippers and shawl. The dress Imelda had tried to make had suddenly disappeared, possibly because of Coco's lack of interest, or possibly because the living had something else in store for her, or couldn't yet remember her as being dressed normally. She didn't seem to mind.

They got off the tram at the base of the staircase, and the operator gave them a little nod, almost embarrassed to see them here, as if having heard their family's business - along with everyone else in the city - had been a regrettable accident. Or maybe it was apologetic. Héctor was sure that the operators were the same ones who'd worked here under Ernesto.

Either way, nothing that happened was this man's fault. He smiled in as friendly a way as he could.

The man nodded. "Señor de la Cruz is almost always in the ofrenda room," he said. "If he's anywhere else, the guards will know."

"Thank you," Coco said.

They started to walk past, but the tram operator called, "Wait!"

Héctor turned.

The man looked around wildly. "We… um… we don't let him wander around. We would put him somewhere else if we could. We… support _you_, Señor Rivera. I wanted you to know. We've been talking about it ever since the Spectacular."

Héctor wasn't sure what to say to this declaration. He was vaguely aware that there was talk in the arts district about what had happened. He'd seen Ceci a few times, but she had long ago lost her liking for Imelda (before either of them died, actually), and he'd found it uncomfortable to talk to her, now that he was back in his home. Gustavo had switched from mocking him about a chorizo to teasing about not noticing that he'd been murdered. Frida was above it all, as usual. All she'd said was, "I never liked that giant fake, anyway." Among artists who knew him, it was a more or less open secret that Ernesto was a snake.

The real talk, though, must have been going on in the audience. He hadn't really thought about what it had meant to _them_, but this man seemed to have taken it very personally. He didn't have a hat, but his hands were wringing like he was twisting one anxiously, like he expected Héctor to have spent the last several months fuming at Ernesto's fans.

"We don't let him out," he said again. "And we don't let anyone in to see him, except you." He looked around. "And we'll look the other way if you have revenge in mind."

"I don't," Héctor said quickly. This wasn't _exactly_ true. He had fairly regular fantasies about how to get revenge on Ernesto. He'd even toyed with a revenge corrido. But he didn't really mean to do it. He just wanted the guitar back.

"Well. All right then. I'd offer you a ride up the stairs, but there really isn't a shortcut."

"It's okay."

Héctor took Coco's arm and led her away. She was gaping at the man behind them.

When he was out of earshot, she said, "Wouldn't you get in trouble for that? I mean, if he let you…"

"Most likely."

"Wouldn't _he_?"

"Yes."

They walked the rest of the staircase in silence, and came into the grand party hall… or what had once been the grand party hall.

The guitar-shaped pool had been drained, and the screens were no longer playing looped clips from Ernesto's movies. In fact, one of them was showing the footage that Rosita and Victoria had gotten the night of the Spectacular, as he confessed his crime and threw Miguel from the top of the stadium. The video was almost clear enough to see the little red jacket thrown casually off to the side. Imelda had thought to use it for a message. They weren't sure whether or not Miguel could send one back - it had, after all, been a fairly unique occurrence that something from the living world had made it here intact; it was likely that it wouldn't make it back for an answer. That was why Coco had insisted that Héctor add the bit about being all right. She didn't think there would be another chance.

On the screen, Ernesto picked up Miguel and strode to the edge of the stadium and, again, flung him out into the night.

Coco looked at it, horrified. "_That's_ what he did to Miguel?"

"He didn't tell you?"

"He didn't want me worrying. He just said he was in trouble and you saved him."

"I didn't do a damned thing. Dante and Pepita saved him. I couldn't even stand up." Coco looked down, and he put a hand on her shoulder. "Not your fault, mija. No one can do anything about dementia."

They passed the empty pool and several torn up portraits, then went down a short hall, where one of Ernesto's security goons was now standing at attention outside the door to the huge ofrenda room.

He stood up straighter when he saw Héctor and said, "Señor Rivera. We were told you were coming up."

"Will he see me?" Héctor asked.

"Oh, he'll see you," the guard said, narrowing his eyes. Héctor thought he might be one of the ones who'd thrown him in the cenote, but if so, he was apparently trying to make up for it by being just as aggressive in guarding Ernesto. "He'll see you if I have to pull his head off and make him look."

Héctor held up his hands. "I think that won't be necessary. Thank you, though. It's all right. I've had regular jobs, too."

Apparently realizing that he'd been recognized, the guard looked away and opened the door, stepping out of Héctor and Coco's way.

They went inside.

The room was vast, richly appointed, and still piled high with Ernesto's offerings from the living. Héctor didn't know how he retrieved them. Never having had a single ofrenda to go to, he didn't even know how someone would know about the thousands this sort of room implied, let alone get to them to collect hundreds of guitars, gallons of wine, and fine clothes of every kind.

"Héctor, my friend. I wondered if I would see you." Ernesto appeared from behind a tower of guitars, his face hidden under the shadow of his sombrero, only his broad smile showing.

The strangest part of the greeting was that it seemed perfectly sincere. The last time Héctor had seen Ernesto, he was being dragged off the stage after publically admitting to murder. To _Héctor's_ murder, specifically. And yet, his voice was warm and welcoming, as if he'd been looking forward to nothing more than a visit from his childhood friend.

"A nice collection, isn't it?" Ernesto asked. "I've been looking for the lyrics Miguel left for me over the years. I thought you might like them. Maybe you could even come up with new music! I could use some new songs." He smiled. "But then, I get so many poems. I can't really remember where I left Miguel's. I'm afraid I didn't take any special notice of them. So many Riveras. I never made the connection, if they came to my attention at all." He looked at Coco. "And this must be baby Socorro. All grown up and then some, I see. The last time I saw you, you were… what, thirteen? Fourteen?"

"Thirteen," Coco said.

"Pretty as a little picture," Ernesto said. "You should have seen her, Héctor. I doubt you'd have left her alone with me. Or any man."

Héctor's fist clenched of its own accord, but Coco put her hand on his wrist to keep him from responding.

"I would not have been so foolish in any case," she said. "We came for the guitar, Tío Nesto."

Héctor was momentarily shocked by her use of the old endearment - yes, she had called Ernesto that once, but it was a few lifetimes back - but then he saw the way Ernesto brightened, like she had given him a great gift.

"Oh, yes, yes. The guitar. I am sorry about that." He looked at Héctor. "But surely, you would not have wanted it to lie idle? Or go back to the woman who burned all of your possessions out of spite?" He shook his head. "I heard about that. Quite the scandal in Santa Cecilia. My mother told me about it. Of course, that wife of yours always had a few screws loose in her head. I see she's not with you. You were afraid to tell her that you were coming to visit me?" He laughed. "Oh, you always did have a healthy fear of that crazy shrew."

"That's enough, Ernesto," Héctor said, still wrong-footed by exactly how casually Ernesto was treating this. He wasn't sure what he'd imagined - maybe contrition, maybe defiance. But this was Ernesto as he had always been, as if he'd expected that this revelation about his behavior in the past was a minor matter, which certainly should have been forgotten by now.

Coco's grip on his wrist tightened, and he patted her fingers.

"I tried talking to her - "

"I know what you said to her," Héctor cut in. "A woman?"

"Yes, I know. It was too much for her to believe. You and a real woman?" He rolled his eyes, as if at an old, worn out joke. "But after what she'd done to your music, I just wanted to have a bit of fun with her nerves."

"Yes, I'm sure Mamá burning his old papers was worse for his music than you _killing_ him," Coco said.

"Oho," Ernesto held up a hand and laughed. "_Allegedly_. No one has proven anything."

"You admitted it!" Héctor said.

"I didn't deny it," Ernesto corrected him. "Your grandson confused a movie with history. He was upset about the songs, and I understand that. I didn't think something so crazy would need to be argued with."

"You threw him twice from high places, trying to kill him," Héctor said. "Once into the sinkhole, and then off a building in front of an audience. You don't do that over nothing."

"Well, he meant to spread this lie around. I couldn't let him do that."

"Like you couldn't let Papá take his song book back and come home to us," Coco said.

"You don't think songwriters are so rare that I had to _kill_ for songs?"

"For the ones you wanted, you did."

"What did you do, Nesto?" Héctor asked. "Did you promise them a song I told you I'd never give you? Is that what you did in those meetings I was too 'sick' attend? Did they give you a contract stipulating that they needed that song?"

"Please, Héctor, you're embarrassing yourself. I could have used any song. I was a star in the making, and they knew it."

"But you didn't use Iany/i song. You used Coco's lullaby. The one you'd been begging me to 'spice up' for weeks."

"Movies didn't even have sound yet when you died. Why would they demand any song?"

"You were looking for touring contract. A big promotion. I remember the talk. The movies were going to make you famous, so the crowds would come live. And you said - I remember you saying - that it was just a matter of time before they added sound."

"I was a prescient genius," Ernesto said dryly.

"You spiced up the song and you promised it to them."

"I gave that song an opportunity to shine after you were gone. That's all. It was a catchy tune, but not worth killing for."

"Stop lying, Nesto," Héctor said, tired of the entire conversation. "We know what happened. You know what happened. What does it matter if you admit it here? We saw the Heirloom Division. We can't even try you for it here. The only thing that matters here is what everyone saw you do to Miguel, and even you can't talk your way out of that. We came to ask you to let go of the guitar."

"What?"

"Papá's guitar," Coco said. "Just say you give it up freely. Then we don't have to force it at a hearing."

Ernesto laughed. "And how do you plan to do that?"

"I think you want to tell the story," Héctor said. "I think that's why you put it in that movie."

"If that guitar goes out of my tomb, people will ask questions. Everything will start to fall apart." He sat down on a fine velvet sofa and indicated chairs for Héctor and Coco. "I've talked to people, too. Not nice little ladies from the Heirloom Division. Ever since that boy was here, people have been questioning me. They can't take my things, not as long as the living want me to have them. But they took my guards. And they've turned my home into a prison."

"Yes, my heart would be breaking for you, if you hadn't stopped it beating," Héctor said.

"If I start making concessions, if that guitar ends up in someone's hands instead of in my tomb - all of this will start disappearing. I'll end up forgotten."

"I don't think they'd put up with you in Los Olvidados."

"But you wouldn't be," Coco said. "That's not what you're afraid of. They're not going to forget you. They're going to hate you."

"Odiados," Héctor realized.

"That's a place?" Coco asked.

"Of course it is," Ernesto said. "Why do you think the streets aren't overrun with the hated?" He grinned at Héctor. "You almost ended up there, didn't you? Did you get there and have a look around?"

"No. I didn't. Imelda didn't hate me."

"She certainly made a show of it."

"I was never La Malinche." Héctor looked at Coco. "It's a neighborhood, impossible to get to unless the living think you belong there. I knew a man who used to be called a villain - they hanged him as a murderer. But then they found out who really did it, and he found the way out. Then they forgot him entirely. But I knew him in Los Olvidados before he vanished. He told me about Odiados. I don't think Ernesto here will be in any trouble. They'll probably love him. They run around in there perfectly free to do whatever they want. It's just that they only have each other to do it to. For all time, since no one forgets them."

"And they just sentence you there?" Coco asks.

"No," Héctor said. "It's like everything else from the land of the living. You find yourself there. Some paths open. Some disappear. Until there's only one place to go, and no way out of it, unless the living re-imagine you."

"If I'm sentenced here for trying to stop the lies that might have sent me there, all they can do is put me in a cell." Ernesto shrugged. "They'll get bored trying to keep me in it. I'll be out in a decade or two. Long after the little brat has moved on to some new obsession, and your people forget you again."

"I knew this would be a waste of time," Coco said. "It was when I talked to him before, too."

Héctor sighed. "I thought I'd give him a chance to do the decent thing," he said. "But it's too late."

Ernesto put a hand over his heart in a sarcastic gesture and stood up, heading toward the great window that overlooked the square. "You never did have the spine to do what needed to be done, Héctor. All the talent in the world, and _you_ would have followed your… heart… back to Santa Cecilia. To be nobody but the bruja's henpecked husband."

Héctor didn't think about it. He just crossed the room, grabbed Ernesto by the lapels of his overdesigned jacket, and shoved him against the window. "I was never _nobody_. I mattered to someone. Someone real. Not an audience who forgot me as soon as their dinner came to the table. _You_ were nobody. A shadow on a screen. A voice in the air. A nest of lies on paper. I didn't live as long as you did, but I made something that mattered while I was alive. All you did was steal part of it."

He let Ernesto go with a shove and turned his back on him, leading Coco out without looking back.

When they got to the balcony outside, now covered with alebrije droppings and stones people had thrown at the house, he sat down on an ornate bench. "Sorry, Coco," he said. "I shouldn't have let you come. I should have told you to stay in the workshop."

"I didn't ask permission," she said, sitting down beside him. "I just came along. Like a genuinely grown up hundred year old." She smiled.

"I knew he wouldn't give it up. I don't know why I bothered asking."

"You wanted to see him," she suggested.

"What?"

"He was your friend."

"Well, I used to think he was."

"In your heart, he was your friend. Even if your heart was wrong about him."

"Imelda told me so many times…"

"Yes. And he told you she was a shrew and witch. You were used to them sniping at each other, so you ignored it."

"Only Imelda wasn't sniping. She was telling the truth. She knew he was using me. I just didn't want to believe it." Héctor shook his head. "Ernesto was like my big brother. I thought he was, anyway. I used to scramble on the streets for just a few pesos. And I used to split that with Imelda and the twins, because even that was more than she could scrape up sewing back then. It was quick money. Ernesto always knew where to find more of it. The songs just came to me then. I never thought twice about them. They were free for me, so any money was good. Generous, even." He balled his fist and hit his knee. "I was a fool."

"You were a child!" Coco said. "Papá, you were a child living on the street. He probably _did_ improve your life. And Mamá's and the uncles'. Of course you thought he was helping you. And of course you argued with Mamá when she pointed out that you should be getting more out of the deal."

"But I knew he could be a snake." Héctor looked up at the window, where Ernesto was still standing, probably watching this. It didn't matter. He couldn't hear so far away. "I knew it from the girls. The way he talked about them when they weren't there. There was another orphan girl. She lived in the abbey with Imelda and the boys. Ernesto took it in his head to… Well, she was a very pretty girl who was taken with him, and... well, she certainly wasn't the only one. But after the deed was done, he laughed about it, and wouldn't even talk to her again, let alone marry her like she must have imagined he would. And he told everyone in town how easy it was. Last I knew, Teresa had given in to her reputation and - "

"Teresa?" Coco smiled. "I think she became a nun. I know the uncles were friends with a nun named Teresa, and Mamá… once said something nasty to her about liking low cut dresses when she was younger."

Héctor tried to imagine Teresa Rivera, another of the ones named for the padre who'd founded the orphanage, donning a nun's habit. Given some of the things he'd seen her do in taverns where he and Ernesto had been singing, he found it difficult. Ernesto had often pointed out that he'd had her first, and for free. Maybe she'd felt the need to do something drastic to get her life back in order. "Imelda had told her over and over not to trust Ernesto, and Teresa didn't like being told what to feel. They fought a lot about it, and I think Teresa was as embarrassed as I am to find out that Imelda was right." He snorted out a bitter laugh. "And it really wasn't that different in the end. I wonder who he laughed at me with."

"I doubt he told anyone. He wouldn't have wanted anyone nosing around. Stealing your songs would have been bad, but what he did to get it? He'd have ended up in jail if he'd told anyone."

"Still, I knew Imelda was right about what he did to Teresa. Why did I think she was wrong about what he was doing to me?"

"It would have cost you too much to know." Coco took his hand. "Come on, Papá. Let's go home."

"What will we tell the family?"

"That we had a nice walk in the arts district."

"You want to lie?"

She stood up and tugged him with her. "No. Mamá knows what I'm actually saying when I don't tell her something. It might as well be, 'We went to see de la Cruz about the guitar even though you told us it was crazy and we knew it was crazy and we all turned out to be right.' Except that it won't require any family discussion."

Héctor wasn't sure about it, but when they got back to the workshop and Coco said they'd had a walk, Imelda nodded knowingly, and later, when they were alone, she asked, "So… did you have a nice chat with your murderer?"

He told her everything. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

_March 10, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
I know it hasn't been very long since the last letter, but I wanted you to know that we got your message, and I tried to send one back, but I watched Dante until he disappeared, and when he did, the jacket just fell down. The sleeves were still tied and everything. It's like Dante stopped being solid or something. So, I guess I'll just keep writing this way. Thank you SO MUCH for letting me know that Papá Héctor is all right. I guess I won't be able to see for myself until I die, and I hope that's a really long time from now. I hope you're all still there, though. I'm going to make sure to tell lots and lots of stories._

_Papá decided to tell the detective - we have a detective; his name is Calles, and he's looking _really_ hard for Papá Héctor - that the more he read your letters, the more he thought Papá Héctor was planning to come home right away, and maybe had a train ticket. We think that your arrow meant north, and the fake letters were from the north. So Calles knows the train part, and he's pretty smart. He already guessed that meant that he could have ended up on a train going anywhere, so now he's looking for things about trains. He tried to find film of the audition from the studio, but they only found de la Cruz's clips. I think I see Papá Héctor in the very back of one of them, playing his guitar (which is really good for the hearing at the end of the month), but I didn't get to see him pretending to ride a horse and rescue a princess, like he said in his letter._

_That was my birthday present from Calles. Today was my birthday. I'm thirteen now. Mamá and Papá made me a real mariachi uniform. It's red and gold. I was really surprised. I had no idea they were working on it. Mamá made the suit and Papá made the hat. I didn't go to the plaza - I'm going tomorrow - but I did put it on and sing for everyone at home. Papá and Tío Berto are going to turn the old well into a little stage. My friends from school thought it was stupid at first, but I think they kind of liked it in the end. Rosa gave me books she likes. She says I have to start doing something other than music or everyone's going to think I'm weird. So now I'm reading about a girl who has to play this stupid game where she kills people a lot. I'm sure that helps with the weird thing, right? Abel used his computer to put together a picture of me playing with Papá Héctor at the competition. He didn't quite get the skull marks right, but it's pretty neat. I'll put a copy in with the letter for him, if he wants it. Mine is on the wall of your room, so I can see it when I practice._

_Papá Isidro was here for my party. Do you remember him? Mamá's father? He's taking me up to his village in the hills next month, so I can see my other family. I haven't been there since I was four. Papá Isidro says there's nothing to see, but I'm going to try and remember everything._

_Love,  
Miguel_

_PS: Trying to remember everything, I forgot: Hello from Socorro, too! I guess you can see she was sucking on the envelope while I was writing. We made a nice little bed for her in a basket, so whoever is looking after her can carry her around, and that's always me when I'm writing your letters._

After the party, the family gathered in the workshop, which was where they always gathered. Miguel had finished his letter for the day and carried Socorro back in, and now Gloria was fussing over her. He was still wearing the charro suit, and seemed very pleased with the present. Enrique, who'd seen him as a musician but not really a performer until now, felt suddenly quite old, like he was seeing his son as the adult he would be someday - not just an adult (which was distressingly close, only five years now), but one settled comfortably into a well-matched career. He'd sung earlier, several old mariachi songs and a few popular ones he'd been learning for Carlos. He played part of the song he'd written, but not all of it, because he had friends over from school. They'd all seemed a little nonplused by it. Mostly, it was boys from the track team, but also a few members of the school's band. Three of them were girls. Miguel was paying a bit more attention to one of them than Enrique liked. He thought there might be a few talks waiting in the wings.

But all of the guests were gone now, unless you counted Papá Isidro as a guest, which no one did. Aside from being Miguel's grandfather, he had been there when the message came.

And this was the first chance to talk about it, really.

Mamá brought the hoodie out in the wooden box they'd found for it. It was stashed in a cubby behind the ofrenda. No one knew what to do with it.

She opened the box, took it out with shaking hands, and spread it out on the work table.

Everyone looked at it, standing back a bit, like it might burn them.

The single word, "Trén," stood out, almost glowing in the light from above. Beside it, the arrow. Beneath the arrow, "Estoy bien, mijo."

Miguel took his hat off as a gesture of respect, then walked up to it slowly and touched the smaller words, tension passing out of him, even as the rest of the family stood in frightened awe.

"We should take it to the priests," Papá said.

"They'll keep it," Gloria said. "They'll think it's a miracle, or they'll think it's ghosts."

"It _is_ a miracle. It _is_ ghosts."

"It's just family," Miguel said. "It's just a note from them."

"From the _dead_," Rosa pointed out. "It's not exactly a Post-It, Miguel."

"I know." He ran his finger over the words _Estoy bien_. "But it's not magic. It's just part of the world. And it's just trying to tell us something. The train. North. And Papá Héctor's all right."

"You sure that's not from Mamá Coco?" Berto asked.

"Why wouldn't she be all right? She just got there, and everyone remembers her." He shook his head. "We knew everyone else was all right. That's how everything works there. If you're remembered, you're all right."

"What do we do with it?" Carmen asked.

"I've sent a message to Calles." Enrique took a seat on his usual work stool. "I told him that Héctor may have had a train ticket. Maybe he can find something if he just starts there."

"It _was_ at the train station," Miguel said. "De la Cruz walked him to the train station, and that's where he got sick."

"Which we can't prove," Berto prodded gently.

"I don't mean what do we do about the message," Carmen said. "I mean the thing itself. We can't just leave it in a box under the counter! It's… it's a letter from beyond!"

Papá Isidro scanned the hoodie carefully. "Where would be better than your ofrenda?"

"Papá Franco has a point about the priests," Luisa said.

"What are they going to do about it?" Papá Isidro asked. "No one there is a saint, and it's a message from your grandparents, not from God. Unless any of your people are priests?"

"I have a cousin," Carmen said hesitantly.

"Leandro!" Berto agreed. "We could ask him… theoretically…"

"It's Miguel's jacket," Papá Isidro said. "And it's a letter to Miguel. I think he gets to decide what happens to it." He looked around in a challenging way, but no one argued against his right to speak on the subject.

"I want to keep it at the ofrenda," Miguel said, not quite looking at anyone. "If… if it's okay. If it's mine. I want to keep it there. And if I go… I mean, when I go to school, I'm coming back…"

"Miguel, worry about that later," Enrique said automatically.

"I want to keep it," Miguel said again, then looked apologetically at Carmen. "But if you want to ask your primo, Tía Carmen, maybe he could bless it or something…"

The conversation trailed off for a minute, no one quite knowing what to say.

"Why do they think north?" Abel finally asked. "Why would we be looking north?"

"No one would know him," Mamá said. "And of course… trains cross the border. If I wanted to make something disappear and didn't have a handy ocean..." She rocked her hand back and forth. "We could lose the trail completely."

"And it's not exactly the friendliest border to work across right now," Berto muttered.

No one said anything. Enrique was vaguely aware of some kind of insanity at the northern border, but there always seemed to have been some story of craziness there. He took a deep breath. "Let's not worry about snafus with international jurisdiction until we know it's going to be a problem. There's a lot of north between the capital and the border."

Miguel picked up the hoodie, folded it carefully, and held it against his chest, his brow furrowed. "I doubt they know any more about where it ended up than we do. I think this is a guess."

"Why do you say that, mijo?" Mamá asked.

"He was dead. How would he know where his…" Suddenly, Miguel pressed the jacket against his face. "He's dead, no matter what. All that would be on a train is a body."

Enrique reached over and patted his back.

He took a deep breath. "Sorry. I just forgot for a second."

Mamá came over and put her arms around him. He leaned into her embrace.

The conversation didn't really go anywhere. Everyone just wanted to look at the note, so Miguel laid it flat again. Enrique noticed that he was starting to drift off, and he put his own arm across his son's shoulder, pulling him away from his abuelita. "Miguel? I think you're ready for bed."

He nodded and slid down from his stool to give Socorro a kiss, then to give one to Luisa. At thirteen, he'd apparently decided he was officially too old to give kisses to everyone in the room.

Enrique thought of him at the age of four, merrily running from adult to adult (and Abel, who he seemed to think of as an adult at the time). He missed the four-year-old Miguel, but in a way, the very missing made him love the thirteen year old version more.

The other children made their excuses over the next fifteen minutes, and Luisa went to put Socorro to bed. Carmen and Berto went back to have a drink in the kitchen, and Mamá and Papá said something about being ready for church in the morning.

Enrique was alone with Papá Isidro, who was still looking at the jacket, appraising it like a curator in a museum.

"Looks like they may have tried to write more," he said, pointing at a frayed area. "The threads are pulled in lines. They could have tried a pen. Ghost ink didn't carry."

"I think Miguel really wanted to write back."

"They're his friends, Enrique. I think you worry too much about this. He had a powerful experience, but the most powerful part may have been making a true friend. I don't think he's had many. Your Papá Héctor may have been the first. Those children tonight? They didn't even understand his music. He invited them to stop you from being concerned. Except maybe that very cute girl." Papá Isidro grinned, then grew serious again. "I see the children come out of school every day. Miguel says hello to people, and there's nothing wrong with him, but he's almost always alone or with Rosa by the time he gets to me."

Enrique sighed. "I want him to have friends in this world. In this town, and his own age. I don't want him getting so lost in his music - or his dead family - that he forgets to be alive and in the world."

"It's a valid worry. But I don't think it's about _this_." Papá Isidro gestured at the jacket. "Miguel didn't have a lot of friends before Día de Muertos, did he? Because no one understood him. That's not going to change. Children with gifts sometimes have a hard time. They look for someone who understands what's important to them, and they don't find anyone. At least not among their peers."

"Or they find the wrong person," Enrique said. "They find someone who uses them. Who -"

"Ah. So Miguel is not the only one obsessing over your bisabuelo's story. You're worried that he will find a de la Cruz instead of an Imelda."

"Honestly, I'm kind of worried about an Imelda, too. He's just four years younger than Papá Héctor was when Mamá Coco was born."

Papá Isidro laughed. "That's an entirely different worry, and one every parent has."

Neither of them mentioned that Luisa had been barely twenty when Miguel was born, but the subject, as usual, hung between them.

"I worry about the musicians, too. Crazy parties. Drugs."

"Every child needs to learn to navigate around the pitfalls. You've been a good father. Trust that."

They talked for a little longer, then Enrique walked Papá Isidro out to his truck, an ancient, cobbled-together thing that made the shop's truck look like a limousine.

"Is this thing going to make the trip to the mountains?" Enrique asked.

"She always has before," Papá Isidro said, climbing up into the cab and patting the dash fondly. "But I'll give her a once-over before we head up. Are you coming along?"

"Sure, why not? I haven't been up to the mountains for a while."

"Good." He started the truck, which coughed to life with an alarming belch of exhaust. The radio crackled and some loud band from the 1980s started singing a power ballad.

"Now that we'll let you have your music," Enrique said, "you should think about moving in. There's room."

"Eh, Dulcie might not stay as long when she visits on Día de Muertos if I were in a houseful of people."

"Or she might stay longer, if she could visit you and Luisa at the same time."

"Hmm. A good point. Worth thinking about." He stepped on the gas and drove away.

Enrique turned around. He wasn't entirely surprised to see Miguel's light still on, and he knocked softly on the door. He thought it was possible that Miguel had just left his light on and wouldn't hear the knock, but he heard a soft, "Come in."

He opened the door. "Hey. Was it a good birthday?"

Miguel smiled. He looked exhausted. "I hung up my suit, but I can't stop looking at it. Thank you. Again."

"You're welcome. Mamá and I are looking forward to seeing you in the plaza tomorrow."

"You knew I was going to do that? I was going to surprise you."

"You might want to work on that secret-keeping skill." Enrique grinned and sat down on the corner of Miguel's bed. "Miguel, those boys here tonight, the girls… are they your friends? Papá Isidro thinks you just invited them to humor me."

"They're all right. We're on the team together, or in band. I like them all right." He shrugged. "I know you want me to have friends at regular school."

"I want you to have friends you want." Enrique looked down at his hands, which were clasped between his knees. "I'm sometimes afraid that you want to see your Papá Héctor and Mamá Coco so much that you…"

Miguel's eyes opened in almost comical surprise. "No, Papá! No, I wouldn't… I don't… I miss them, and I wish I could see them, but I don't want to go back there for a really long time. I mean, unless it's another temporary visit, but that doesn't seem very likely."

"You just seem unhappy sometimes. I never want you to be unhappy again."

"I'm not. I mean, I'm sad about losing Mamá Coco, and I miss her. And I miss Papá Héctor, and Mamá Imelda and everyone else. I like them. But it's just a regular kind of sad. Mostly I'm happy. I have my lessons and everyone knows about my music and everyone likes it. No one's trying to stop me. Everyone's _helping_. You and Mamá made…" He pointed at the suit hanging in his open closet. "And I'm happy that we're fixing as much as we can. I just, earlier, I remembered that we can't fix everything. I know, it's kind of stupid to forget."

"No."

"Yeah, kind of." He shrugged. "It just made me think about a lot. When did I ever think about 1921 before? But it was there. And 2121 will be there, too."

"Barring catastrophes, yes."

"I heard someplace that every person is connected to about two hundred years, from the oldest person they knew when they were little to the youngest person they know when they're old." He smiled. "Before Día de los Muertos, I was thinking of about two hours in the future and a little less in the past. I feel like all the rest of the time got added at once, and I'm still trying to figure out how to carry it around. Is this what it's like to be a grown-up?"

"It's what it's like to be a thoughtful one. But I'll tell you a secret: We don't always carry two centuries around. Sometimes, we just live two hours in the future and even less in the past. And that's okay. Sometimes, you can take all those extra years and put them in a box and stow it out of sight."

"But I kind of like them. I like when I'm in school and I hear something about the Cristeros or the Revolution, and I think, 'Oh, right, Mamá Imelda would have read about that in the paper.' Or about the Olympics in 1968, and how Mamá Coco and Papá Julio drove up there, but couldn't get to the opening ceremonies. I bet the traffic was really bad." He shrugged. "I guess I just noticed that it was all real stuff. It makes it more interesting."

"Well, if it brings your history grades up, then by all means, carry the years to school. And if the future years help you think about what kind of person you want to be remembered as, then keep them handy. But you don't _always_ need to lug them around. This moment counts, too." Enrique decided to lighten the mood. "Which brings me back to our guests tonight. Particularly a girl with a pretty red bow in her hair?"

Miguel blushed and laughed. "Abril. She plays the trumpet. I didn't think she'd actually come. Everyone likes her. But she said she was hoping I'd ask." He put his hands over his face to hide the deepening blush, then yawned hugely into them.

"Why are you so tired?" Enrique asked.

"I…" He smiled sheepishly. "I was up really late working on my song last night. I thought I had it almost finished, but it's not right. It doesn't _finish_. It wants to go someplace else. I don't know where. But there's a key change. Listen." He grabbed his guitar, and sang, "Amor verdadero nos une por siempre, en el latido do mi corazón…" Then he did something with the guitar, and the sound became different, fuller. Miguel smiled and sang, "See, it just wants to be bigger right here…" He shrugged, and went back to speaking. "I just don't know what I want to say."

"You'll figure it out," Enrique said. "Meanwhile, you need sleep. Even thirteen-year-olds need sleep. Shall I tuck you in?"

He'd asked it as a joke, but Miguel actually nodded. He got into his bed and slipped between the covers. Enrique gave them a ceremonial sort of tug, then leaned down and kissed Miguel's forehead. "I love you," he said. "Whatever your life is, whatever you do, I love you."

"I love you, too, Papá. And I'll be okay. Don't worry so much."

Enrique pushed Miguel's bangs off his forehead. "That's in the job description. I hope that someday you'll know that for yourself - a day very far away from this one, very _very_ far away. Many, many _years_ away… Maybe a couple of decades… A century or so…"

"Maybe not quite a _century_…"

"You don't think so?"

"No more than ninety-nine years."

"All right, then. As long as you're not rushing it." Enrique stood up and turned the light off. "Get some sleep, Miguel. The song will still be there in the morning."

He didn't know how long it really took Miguel to fall asleep, but the light didn't come back on, and there was no soft picking of guitar strings. He went back to his own room, where Luisa had tucked Socorro in for the night, and was now sitting up in bed in a circle of warm light from her reading lamp. She put her book away, and held out her arms to him.

The next morning, about half the family went to church. Mamá and Papá almost always did now that Mamá didn't feel honor bound to grimace at the choir. (In fact, she was saving up to donate a collection of hand bells to them, as an act of contrition for her pridefulness, or so she said. Enrique thought she just liked bells and wasn't quite ready to admit it yet.) Luisa liked to go and gossip with her old school friends. Berto and his children didn't go, but Carmen almost always did, usually pulling Gloria along with the thought of trying to find her a nice Catholic husband.

Enrique and Miguel sometimes went and sometimes didn't. This time, Miguel opted to get in a little more practice. He and Rosa were in Mamá Coco's room, picking out songs for his Plaza debut.

"Is it really okay?" Berto asked, sitting down on the green bench beside Enrique. "I mean… can anyone just go up there and start playing a guitar?"

"Not when there's something scheduled," Enrique said. "But Sunday afternoons, this is what they do. People who want to give it a try, give it a try. It's supposed to be honoring de la Cruz's famous act."

Berto spat onto the ground, not giving any more commentary than that on the subject of Ernesto de la Cruz. "And you're all right with the business of him jumping around in front of everyone?"

"I am."

"You think it's safe?"

"Yes."

"Rosa wants to know if she can join him when she gets good enough." Berto stared at the door to the practice room. "I figured we'd never have to worry about our kids wanting to be famous singers."

"I don't think Miguel cares about being famous."

Miguel ran through a few verses of an old ballad, then stopped and switched to a different tune. Rosa was saying something, but Enrique couldn't tell what it was.

"I'm worried about the business," Berto said. "Is that wrong? We've had it for four generations. What if none of the children want to make shoes? Will we lose it? Will it just die?" He looked up sheepishly. "I know it's not supposed to mean anything, and we're all supposed to cheer for new interests, but… I'm proud of this business. I always wanted to pass it down to my children, like Mamá and Papá passed it to us, and Mamá Coco passed it to them, and Mamá Imelda to her. And now, they may not want it."

"I hadn't thought about it. Maybe Socorro will be passionate about shoes. And Abel doesn't seem to mind them. Maybe the twins will love them."

"Or maybe it will skip a generation," Berto suggested. "I can keep working until there are grown grandchildren. Maybe one of them will grow up with all of these musicians and start secretly making shoes in the attic of the old house."

Enrique laughed. "Miguel wants the old house," he said. "Do you know if Abel or Rosa wants it?"

"Abel wants to get his own apartment across town." Berto shook his head. "What a world." He raised an eyebrow. "And you know Miguel's not going to be a musician in Santa Cecilia. He'll have to be somewhere bigger."

"I know. I think he knows. But I enjoy that his daydream includes staying at the hacienda. Do you think anyone would mind if he started fixing it up? Not to live in yet, just…"

"Just to make it livable again? It's about time someone did. The family's not getting any smaller. Maybe we can connect it up better." He pointed at the wall that separated the main courtyard behind the shop - where the ofrenda room and the kitchen were - from the courtyard around the houses they lived in. "We could build that out into a proper hallway, maybe even put some rooms along it. That could connect to the old house. What do you think? I was talking to Abel about it, and he can help with the construction. Maybe it'll even convince him to stay. He was talking about making a fountain."

"I think it's a good idea. About time we started making our mark around here."

The conversation ended, because the children came out. Miguel was resplendent in his new suit, even if he was still carrying the generic, store-bought guitar. (Enrique decided, on the spur of the moment, to at least get this one decorated. He'd learn how to do it and try to sneak it in during some hours when Miguel didn't have the instrument at his side.) Rosa was chattering on about who was coming to the plaza to hear him - apparently, she'd invited her entire extended social circle - and Miguel looked a little bit anxious.

Enrique put a hand on his shoulder, and the four of them made their way to mariachi square.

A few of the regular mariachis greeted Miguel by name. Apparently, he'd been haunting the place more openly after school. They wished him well. The family was winding its way over from the church. Miguel gave them all a nervous smile.

Mamá stepped forward and led him out as soon as the frightened looking young woman who'd been on the bandstand finished her song. "This is my grandson!" she announced to all and sundry. "He's a _musician!_"

Miguel smiled broadly and mounted the steps to the bandstand.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then let out a joyous grito.

The crowd didn't let him down until he'd done several songs, and even then, they spent all afternoon clapping him on the back and asking him when he'd be singing again.

And he was, at least for now, completely in the moment.


	10. Chapter 10

_No te amo por hacerme reir_  
_No te amo por nuestra juventud  
No te amo por tu dulzura  
Te amo porque eres tú._

_I don't love you for bringing me laughter_  
_I don't love you for memories of youth  
I don't love you because you are gentle  
I love you because you are you._

Héctor sat at his table in the music room, looking at the scraps of songs that had been coming to him. A verse here, a tune there… Most of them wanted to be full songs, but it had been so long since he'd written one that he was almost afraid of making them come together. It might not be as good as he remembered being, or worse, as good as other people remembered. He had a ballad loosely about Ernesto (of all things… but he'd woken up the morning after visiting him with a dark phrase rattling around in his skull: "He was only eighteen when he sold his soul"). There were songs to Imelda, and one for Coco. And he still had Miguel's song running through him from time to time. There was a key change now. Miguel was thinking of larger things than his visit with his old family. But he didn't know how to say them. Héctor couldn't help.

Dante had returned, nipping at his shoulder, where the hoodie had clearly been tied moments before. He'd given an apologetic look, as if he hadn't already managed the small miracle of taking the thing back in the first place. Now he and Pepita were back to their flying lessons, though they were sticking closer to home, and Héctor now saw them almost every day.

He picked up his guitar and ran a playful little instrumental melody that sounded like the two of them tumbling around in the air. He'd never tried writing about pets before, never having had one. Maybe it would be interesting.

He picked up his pen hopefully, but nothing came to him.

Instead, he put the pen down and picked up the newspaper, _Más Allá_, which he'd often found funny. Why would there be a daily paper in the land of the dead where, for the most part, people's afterlives unspooled uneventfully? But reporters were apparently passionate about their jobs in life, so the land of the dead provided them with a chance to keep doing them. The only day they didn't publish was Día de Muertos, which was when they went back to the land of the living and collected up as much news of the past year as they could find, which they doled out bit by bit to keep the pages full. Most days, it was filled with breathless articles about the inner workings of the Department of Family Reunions, or the terrible state of garbage disappearance after festivals. They often managed two editions a day, and when something actually happened, it warranted an extra edition. There had been one the day after the Spectacular, mostly covering Miguel's visit and Ernesto's public shaming. It had been an interesting collection of articles, from the factual ("Living Boy Accidentally Arrives… Curse Determined") to the ridiculous ("Are the Living Planning an Invasion?"). As to Ernesto, there'd been a recap of his career, with a list of his movies, all of the articles now calling into question just how much had been stolen.

The reporters who'd been at the Spectacular had rushed up to the family almost immediately after Miguel had disappeared, and Héctor had a vague memory of them leaning around Imelda and trying to ask him questions. By then, it had been all he could do to keep his bones together, and he could feel the pressure of the golden light trying to shatter him apart. He hadn't been able to say anything to anyone. Dante had stood by his head, growling at the strangers, and Imelda had beckoned Pepita at some point to keep them back. This had put them off asking for any more interviews, even after Héctor had returned from the brink.

Instead, they'd talked to people he knew - Gustavo, who told the chorizo story and seemed surprised it wasn't true; a few of his friends from Olvidados, who were gone now, but had been kind; and of course, Frida, who had told a dramatic version of the quest for the photograph. She was also doing a series of paintings that depicted the family as roots of a tree which became Miguel. In the sketch she'd made and given to the paper a few days later, she herself, apparently as a personification of Mexico, was the ground they were growing from, and also the sun from which Miguel's eyes needed to be shaded. She was also the one shading his eyes. Her ribcage and arm bones became the guitar he was playing (which was reflected in Héctor's own position as his major root, mirroring him upside down). The title of the series was, "It could use some music," and she was trying to convince her husband, Diego, to contribute a mural on the wall of the former Plaza de la Cruz.

As the story had died down after a month or so, Héctor had read the paper a little less avidly, and mostly for the news of 2017 that they'd managed to gather, and that mostly because the family enjoyed reading the newspaper together. Before coming over, he hadn't bothered to keep up at all. Of course, Coco's arrival was met with another recap of the events of Día de Muertos, but the family had been more concerned with welcoming her at the time.

Now, everyone had a favorite topic. This was apparently a holdover from their life in the living world, because Coco had joined in on the festivities as soon as the first paper had arrived. She'd wanted to hear about the other newcomers (the obituary pages were something like society news here), and Victoria was morbidly obsessed with earthquakes (of which two had killed more than 300 people over the year). Imelda liked to hear about business, which Héctor quickly caught on was habitually met with rolled eyes and fake yawns. He didn't join in (though he genuinely found it dull), but he loved how much she obviously adored the predictable reactions. She was particularly interested in a story Héctor didn't understand about someone doing damage control after a public relations disaster. The twins wanted to know about space flight, which was a concept Héctor hadn't given any thought to at all. Rosita liked the gossip news about various actresses from the telenovelas, and Julio wanted sports news. Héctor hadn't offered a special interest, so they tried him on different music stories (including a disturbing one about a concert bombing in England), then on international politics for some reason, then on animals. He liked the last, but mostly, he was fond of the occasional human interest stories about any kind of person who caught people's attention. ("Good news, then," Imelda decided. "I'd forgotten that was what you always wanted to know. I've missed it. Let's read Héctor's news last, so we end the day with good news.")

Of course, now they'd almost exhausted the news from newly dead reporters and what they'd gathered five months ago. The reporting on the news from the living world had descended to trends in eyebrow grooming. (Frida, of course, had been asked her opinion on decorative eyebrows, and her response had been much shorter: "Eurgh. Of course not.")

They'd all avoided talking about anything from this world. The main story had vanished, but there were still little blurbs, and since talking to Ernesto's guards two weeks ago, Héctor had been scouring the paper for them, trying to understand what everyone else was thinking.

"FORMER PLAZA DE LA CRUZ TO BE CALLED PLAZA DE LA MÚSICA:  
Rivera Family Not Reached for Response  
Reporters were still met with the growls of an aggressive alebrije near the Rivera shoe workshop…"

"RIVERA VISITS DE LA CRUZ:  
What did they talk about?  
Rivera and daughter Socorro (see photo) made the climb up to de la Cruz's tower home…"

"I KNEW DE LA CRUZ WAS A MURDERER:  
Inside story from Mexico City hotel worker  
Bellboy claims to have seen human bones in de la Cruz's LIVING quarters in 1939… on his dinner plate!"

Héctor was skeptical of this last somehow. Ernesto had killed him for money and fame, not sustenance, at least as far as he knew. If the living found out otherwise, he really hoped to _never_ find out about it. The thought of his body passing through Ernesto's digestive system was officially one step further than he could handle.

In fact, the thought of his body at all was becoming a source of anxiety. Ever since he'd realized how his arm had fractured, nightmarish visions of how his body had been handled had been creeping in on him. It didn't matter, he'd left his body after nothing worse than the fracture, but what _had_ become of it? The train was his great hope - that he'd just been put into a car and buried in a common pit somewhere in the north. That was the best case. But what if Ernesto had burned him beyond recognition? What if he'd stuffed him into a trunk, taken him to the ocean, and thrown him in for the sharks to eat, like those workers in Rio Blanco? What if he'd given him to the multitude of stray dogs in the area? For the first time in years, he tried to remember any sensations he'd had after fainting. The pain in his stomach was all that came to him, even though he must have been twisted and stretched out to get the change of clothes. And that must have taken a while. Ernesto hadn't been carrying a spare mariachi uniform when they left the hotel.

Maybe there'd been a shipment of clothes on the train. That would make sense. Ernesto had carried him to a train car where he'd found crates of clothes, maybe even costumes, heading toward the border, to be sold to tourists along with cheap sombreros and maracas. And as Héctor had lain unconscious and dying, Ernesto had started pawing through the crates, finding something that would disguise his old friend.

Then he'd stripped him down to his shirt and his underwear (Héctor assumed that there was no reason to change either), and forced him into the new clothes. And… and then Héctor had been dead, and nothing else he did to the body mattered, because Héctor was far away from it, beyond any further indignities, so why did he keep coming up with awful things that might have happened after his soul had left his flesh?

Of course, the only person who really knew was Ernesto, and it would be a very long time before Héctor talked to him again. And how many lies would he tell, anyway? How many -

With an irritated flick of his wrist, he flung the newspaper across the room and stared at the scraps of paper again.

"Your body again?" Imelda asked from the doorway.

"No, I… yes."

She nodded and came in, pulling up a chair to sit beside him. "I like this one about not loving me because I'm perfect."

"You are, of course, perfect. It's just not what I love about you."

She smiled. "Of course."

Héctor fished that fragment out of the pile and played the tune he'd made. It was more a crooning song than a dancing one. "Does it need more pep?" he asked.

"It needs more verses." She read it over. "Why don't you take it to the Plaza de la Música tonight and sing it?"

"What? It's not done, it's…"

"I've seen you write a song in the afternoon for the evening's show. I think you need to finish one."

"But I don't need to perform…"

She reached over and took his hand. "Yes, you do. You know they recorded you and Miguel singing 'Poco Loco.'" She laughed. "I can't believe I walked right by the two of you and didn't notice. I trained myself a little too well to not hear your songs. Anyway, I've seen the recording. You were happy."

"I don't want to be a performing monkey - "

"I'm sorry I ever said that. You never were a performing monkey, unless I was, too."

Héctor stroked her finger bones for a moment, then said, "I'll tell you what. I will finish this song this afternoon _if_ you come to the Plaza and sing it with me tonight."

She grinned widely. "I thought you'd never ask."

"So, why don't you love me?"

It took her a minute to figure out what he was asking, then she said, "Well, I definitely don't love you for making me laugh, or because you're a wonderful father, or because I feel like I'm sixteen when you touch me."

"Really?"

"Really. And it's not because of your voice or your guitar. And definitely not because of the way you dance around when you're happy, and certainly not because you still look at me like I'm a queen."

"I don't love you for pushing me into this. Or for fishing me out of that cenote, or because you have the wildest alebrije in the land of the dead."

They looked into each other's eyes for a long time, then Imelda sighed and said, "If you don't get to work right now, I'm going to distract you too much to finish before evening. And I think we should have time to rehearse it a few times."

"Did you get the melody when I played it, or do you need it again?"

"I got it. I'll hum it while I work."

"How would you feel about bringing your own guitar?"

She sighed. "I burned my guitar," she said. "I've never found another, and I think that might be part of my punishment. But I did find a tambourine. How would that be?"

"Perfect."

"Good."

She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss, and all thoughts of what might have happened to his body all those years ago disappeared. He imagined her on stage, dancing around him wildly as she once had, a tambourine in her hand, her hair catching the lights. Then he imagined the way she'd flung herself into his arms afterward, and he shook himself out of the memory before it distracted him again.

He opened a fresh notebook and wrote "No Te Amo" in large letters across the top of the page. What he had already was a bit of a chorus, but now, imagining singing with Imelda, the whole song started to spin out for him. It started out with Imelda's long-standing fear that he didn't love her (why she had ever listened to those voices, he didn't know). _They say I don't love you, and maybe it's true, I can't think of one thing that makes me love you. But all of my life, and even beyond, you're always the only true sound of my song…_

It might not be his best song. It might not even be an especially good one, but it was new, and it was coming together, and he would sing it with Imelda tonight in the plaza.

He lost himself in the process for the next few hours, as the world spun out around him. He scribbled things out, rearranged lyrics, and tried different backing chords until he found the ones he liked best. He ran notes over staves, and watched the music in his head become solid. It was as magical as it had ever been.

On a whim, he mimicked Miguel's key change on the final verse and let it go beyond a love song with Imelda, bringing it to the whole family, living and dead, about what their love for each other had created in the world. _I don't love you for today, or love you for tomorrow, I love you forever and more._

He closed the last measure with a double line, then looked down at it. It was done. It wasn't perfect, but it was done.

He arranged the other fragments to work on later, wondering if he could get any work done on another one. "I Hear You Laughing" seemed to want attention…

But Imelda appeared at the door, wearing a fine dress, with a pretty sort of comb in her hair. She was carrying tap shoes, and she shrugged. "I thought it might be fun to add some percussion," she said. "If it fits?"

"It'll be perfect."

"Do the others know we're going to do this?"

Imelda nodded. "Coco is very excited. She says that when she gets used to her body here, she wants to dance with us." She pointed at the music. "May I?"

"Probably a good idea."

She sat down, setting her tap shoes on the table with a resonant sound, and read the song. Héctor watched her face anxiously, hoping he hadn't put anything into her mouth that she wouldn't want to sing. But she just smiled and started humming the new parts of the melody. She smiled widely when she finished. "I can't wait to sing this. Let's rehearse."

While they practiced the song and blocked out some rudimentary choreography, the rest of the family appeared from the shop. Oscar and Felipe were the only ones who'd ever seen them really perform together (though their act _had_ sometimes been what they'd done at the Spectacular, with Imelda performing and Héctor just providing the backing for her), and they seemed delighted to see their big sister perform again. Coco, leaning comfortably into Julio's arms, was whispering what seemed to be stories of her early childhood, at least when Héctor was able to catch a bit of what she was saying. Rosita just watched with great fondness, and Victoria joined in, stomping a kind of counter-rhythm to Imelda's dance. Partway through, Imelda pulled her into it, and the pair of them spun around one another, Victoria laughing self-consciously.

"What do you say?" Héctor asked as he finished. "You can join the act."

"The best Carpas are run by families!" Coco said, her eyes lighting up. "You said that once, Papá. I remember! I saw your show and you said we should all go together."

"I'd forgotten that."

"You were drunk on the crowd that day, mi amor," Imelda said. "Dancing with dogs as I recall." Her words might have been cutting, but her face, her tone… it was a fond memory for her now. "You clowned for Coco and you wanted me to smear up your makeup. It was a good show."

"Of course it was," he said. "My favorite audience was there." He looked at Victoria. "So what do you say, mija? You want to come up with the abuelos?"

"Not without a little more practice," she said. "I haven't tap danced since - "

"Oho," Imelda said. "So you were dancing?"

"We all danced," Coco said. "You knew that."

"I didn't know _you_ knew it," Victoria said. "I danced when I went to classes at Benito Juarez. There were musicians and other wild people. I loved them. And I thought I wasn't likely to be seen." She grinned in an embarrassed way. "I only learned a little bit. I don't know enough now."

Imelda, who was still holding her hand from the dance, raised their arms and spun Victoria around. "I'll start teaching you tomorrow." She let go, then leaned over and hugged Héctor from behind. "Tonight, _I_ plan to be drunk on the crowd loving my husband's new song."

Héctor didn't have any spare clothes to change into, even as costumes. (He had never been sure how the costumes worked. They weren't like real clothes. Ceci started making them as soon as she heard of an oncoming show, and they lasted perfectly well throughout the show, but tended to disappear as soon as the show was over. They also had a kind of flexibility and fluidity that wasn't, in Héctor's memory, typical of real outfits.) Julio lent him a better hat than his usual straw one, and Coco got his tie sorted out.

For his part, he brightened up the markings on Imelda's face and his own, and offered again to invite the others in, but there were no takers.

Coco packed a supper, and the family left together for the Plaza de la Música. Héctor had led so many tours through here that he almost called it the Plaza de la Cruz by habit, despite everything.

It was quieter now, of course, than it had been in November. There was no major event, no holiday. The vendors had their little stalls with memorabilia, much of it at the moment featuring Miguel, though there were also bobbleheads of Los Chachalacos and tee shirts of other famous visitors. There were people gathered around on the cobblestones, sitting on the benches and talking comfortably. On stage, a pair of marimba players seemed to be having some kind of duel, with the object being to see who could hit more wrong notes, in a more distressing clash with the other.

The woman who had served as emcee of the talent show - Héctor thought her name was Clara, but he wasn't sure; she was a relatively recent arrival - was now in her regular job, staffing the office where people signed in if they wanted to play. It had always been the tradition here. (Héctor had rolled his eyes heartily at this when it started, as it supposedly honored Ernesto's humble beginnings just getting up to sing in the plaza _by himself_.) She was wearing her every day outfit, and Héctor guessed her costume and wig had disappeared. For now, she was in a simple red skirt and white blouse, and her black hair, streaked with the aqua color, was up in a bun that was only a little bit higher than a normal one. "Look who's here!" she said when the family came in. "Did you want to sing? You don't have to do it like a civilian, you know - you're a professional, and we could give you a real show."

"Let's try one song first," Héctor said. "I have a new one. Do you think we could get in tonight?"

"Oh, yes. It's a slow night." She scanned a list on her desk. "I've only got two acts signed up, and one of them is going to get stage fright and run away. She signs up every Tuesday, and every Tuesday, she disappears before her stage time comes up. She's supposed to be a magician. Maybe disappearing is a really meta trick." Clara (if that was her name) gave a philosophical shrug. "If it is, it's one that doesn't take up stage time. I can put you on right after the marimba war that's going on up there, if you want. Actually, it would be great if you signed up for that time. I could tell them that it's a shame, but someone signed up for the next slot, so they'll need to" - she winced as, on stage, one of the players dropped a mallet and came up, slamming it against the resonators on the bottom of the instrument - "wrap it up."

Héctor laughed, and signed up for the next spot.

"All right," Imelda said. "Anyone not coming up, I think you can find a spot right up front at the moment."

Coco gave them an excited hug, then ran out to the benches beneath the stage. The others followed.

Héctor took Imelda's hand and she leaned against his shoulder, smiling broadly.

A moment later, the marimba players, looking put out, rolled their instruments offstage.

Clara went out on stage, and adopted her emcee persona without hesitation. "Damas y caballeros!" she called. "I have a special treat tonight. I don't think, after Día de los Muertos, that they need an introduction… La Llorona! Poco Loco!" Héctor glanced out at the audience, where he could see people looking up with interest. Clara went on. "And they came here tonight with a brand new song for us. Give us a big welcome for Héctor and Imelda Rivera!"

Imelda nearly ran onto the stage, as she had when they were young and wild in Santa Cecilia.

The audience loved the new song. And they loved the other six songs that Héctor and Imelda managed to scrape out of their memories from the old act before finally having to say, "That's all we've got!"

By then, the stars were out, and night was soft and cool, and the family had edged right up to the stage. Héctor reached down and pulled Coco up with them, and then Victoria and Julio and the twins and Rosita were there as well, and the world was a forest of bones and they laughed and hugged each other.

The only thing that would have made it more perfect would be having Miguel there, but Héctor didn't wish to have that for a very long time.

Meanwhile, he was surrounded by everything that mattered. His family, his music, and even that strange triumph that came from the smiles of strangers.

Whatever had happened to his body a hundred years ago was far away now, and nothing in this world or any other mattered less.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

_April 20, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
It's been a pretty interesting month. My teacher, Carlos, got interviewed on Azteca Uno about de la Cruz. He said that he'd suspected for a long time that there was a secret songwriter, and he made a lot of points about disconnects in the way the music comes together in the arrangements, and the way de la Cruz talked in his interviews. And he said that he had an opportunity to hear Papá Héctor on the record the nuns found, and he's convinced that Papá Héctor is the real songwriter. He said a lot of technical things, but it really came back to that record, with an older version of Poco Loco on it. It's hard to argue with, you know? So that started the circus. We've had reporters all over Santa Cecilia for three weeks, and tourists coming in, and they keep trying to take pictures of us. I sing in the plaza now - every Saturday night, it's great, and I'm making my own money! - and now people keep trying to ask if I'm going to, I don't know, take all of the old movies or something._

_Papá gave one reporter permission to talk to me, because she knew I was Carlos's source for the record and the lyrics. So there I am, on television, and she asked me what I thought the music was supposed to sound like. I told her that "Remember Me" was a lullaby, and she asked me to sing it the way it was meant to be. I told her that it was meant to be in the family, and she didn't push, but I kind of wonder if I should sing it _once_ in public, so that people know what de la Cruz really did to it. I'm trying to figure out if that would be okay, but I'm going to go with 'no' until there's a really good reason to change my mind._

_There was a man after the interview who said I didn't need to wait for school to be finished, and I could just be a singer now and maybe be in a telenovela he's producing. I definitely said no to that! He kept bothering me about it until Papá said "My son said to leave now - I suggest you do."_

_Anyway, it helped a lot when we had a hearing in the mayor's office, with the ladies from the historical society. They saw me on television, and they saw all the people who came down just to find out about Papá Héctor, and they think it will be all right to take the guitar out of de la Cruz's tomb. Tía Gloria is going to make a little museum at the shop for tourists to come to, so the town will still get the money, which makes them happy. Abel is going to build a wall so we can all still make shoes in peace. (And I made a pair of wing-tips… tell Papá Julio, I used his pattern.) I was really slow, but I did it. I'm still practicing on the new guitar (Papá painted designs on it that are like the eyelets in a shoe!), but I'm performing with the real one. It's back! And it's still perfect._

_Abuelita took me to the bank after school on Monday, and we set up a savings account for my music money to go into. It will be for the conservatory. I'm learning a lot. I've watched two operas, a lot of old Broadway musicals, a Beethoven symphony, and an African drumming group. Next week, a steel drum band is coming to the plaza all the way from Jamaica! I'm going to go see them, and I might be going with a friend of mine. Her name is Abril. I kind of like her. I wish you were here so I could tell you every single thing, but I'll let you know next time how it went._

_Love you, Mamá Coco!_

_Miguel_

The truck rattled and belched as it made its way up the mountain. Luisa and the baby were safely up in the cab with Isidro. Enrique and Miguel were in the truck bed. Miguel seemed to be enjoying the ride, and had to be told several times to keep himself belted to the slats. Enrique had a feeling that allowing this sort of thing might be frowned upon in parenting guides.

On the other hand, he'd spent his own childhood riding around in truck beds, and he'd lived to tell the tale, and this wasn't the first time Miguel had ridden in his grandfather's truck this way.

Still, Enrique was more comfortable watching Miguel than watching the scenery roll away beside them, especially as the dirt road skirted along beside long drops into the gullies. They'd passed through a low cloud earlier, and both of them were a little wet and sticky. Miguel didn't seem to mind. He hadn't brought along his guitar (for once), so there was no worry about damaging it.

And getting out of town had never seemed like a better idea. Enrique regretted allowing a television reporter to speak to Miguel - she'd been kind, and he'd presented himself very well. _Too_ well. Other reporters were trying to get pictures, and Enrique and Luisa had spent a good deal of the past week making sure that Miguel only got letters that weren't disturbing. Enrique was disturbed enough for all three of them. He let through the ones from other children, even the girls who left lipstick prints on their letters, but the ones from adults got much more careful attention. About half of them were locked up before Miguel got home, and the only reason they weren't shredded was that Calles recommended keeping them, in case any of the crazies tried anything. It had not set Enrique's mind at ease about letting Miguel perform anywhere other than the plaza. He'd breathed a sigh of relief when Miguel himself had balked at offers from television producers. Carlos had advised Miguel to answer none of the mail ("You'll end up doing nothing else, and some of these types, you don't want to encourage").

There had also been a smattering of angry letters from de la Cruz fans, but most of that had landed on Carlos, who said he was happy to take it.

But it was good to get away from the first taste of craziness.

Papá Isidro's village, San Pedro Ayahuitl, was about an hour and a half out of Santa Cecilia, but it felt like an entirely different world as the truck finally pulled up beside an old brick house that practically hung off the side of the mountain. Cats were draped over an old swing on the veranda and three of them had climbed up to the roof to sun themselves. Across the street and up a little bit was another house that looked the same, and further up, Enrique knew, there was a small school and a basketball court under a shade structure. The town's entire population might have been two hundred souls. It made Santa Cecilia look like a major urban center.

The door opened as Enrique got down and reached up to help Miguel down. A woman came out wearing blue jeans and an embroidered shirt, a pair of cheap rubber chanclas, and an exquisitely woven straw sunhat. She shouted something at Isidro in Zapotec, and he answered her, then looked over his shoulder at Enrique. "My sister says you're still too skinny and the boy is a twig. She would get along with Elena, I think."

Miguel waved. "Hola, Tía Meche."

Meche shook her head and switched to Spanish. "Hola, Miguel. It's good to finally see you up here! I have treats inside, and your cousins are waiting for you." She switched back to Zapotec and said something cross to Isidro.

He shook his head and looked at Enrique. "She wants to know why you and Miguel haven't learned your own language yet."

"Well, Miguel, maybe, but…"

Meche made a "tsssk" sound as Miguel went around her into the house, and shook her hands at the sky with another exclamation.

"She says to look in a mirror sometime," Isidro translated. "And with that, I mainly agree. But she _knows_ you don't speak the language, and is just being rude right now."

Meche sighed and went to the truck, where she happily took the baby from Luisa to let her get down. Luisa's Zapotec was rusty (at best; Isidro had raised her in town with Spanish as her first language), but she wasn't treated to a lecture on the subject. Socorro simply got an earful of whatever Meche was telling her.

Luisa slipped her arm around Enrique's waist. "Sorry," she said. "I did mean to teach Miguel. I just never got around to it. Tía Meche is a little bit particular."

They climbed the stairs to the squeaky front door and went inside. Miguel was already settled with a handful of second cousins, all of whom seemed to have seen him on television and wanted to know about the pretty reporter he'd spoken to about Papá Héctor's songs, and what the cameras had been like, and whether or not the lights were as hot as people said (Enrique was willing to give that one an unqualified yes - he'd thought he was going to melt on the sidelines). Miguel told them that he wanted to learn everything about this side of his family now, and, before Luisa and Enrique had even sat down, there was a great scurrying among the children to get "all the things." Miguel disappeared upstairs with them.

"Isidro told me what Miguel is doing," Meche said in perfectly good Spanish. "The children are excited to help, at least since they saw him on television. They're very impressed at being related to someone who was on television." She gave the screen a disapproving look. "We tell stories every Día de Muertos. They know them all. Mostly we tell them in town, though, in the plaza. Everyone is related to everyone, anyway."

"Where are Leti and Bas?" Luisa asked. "I was hoping to see them."

"Leti will come for dinner, and to pick up the children. She has a job at the market in town. She manages the day shift," Meche said proudly. "That's why I have the twins for the day. Nando is doing extra shifts at the mine." Enrique racked his brains for the names of Luisa's cousin's twins. The girl was Loli, he thought. The boy was another "L" name. Leo? Lalo? Luchi?

Luchi. He was Luis, after Luisa. Enrique decided that he really ought to remember that one.

The other two, whose names he just plain didn't know, belonged to Meche's son Bas, who Enrique hadn't seen since the wedding. He'd seemed a good enough sort.

"Bas is driving a truck," Meche said. "It's good money, but he's gone a lot. Mamá and Papá got him started on it. They meet a lot of truckers while they go around in that camper. They told him about the money. He needs it. That house of theirs is falling apart. Gabi's down in the city. She's a nurse. She works three days a week, two shifts each, then comes up for the other four days. Chayo and Nico stay with me while she's gone. I hope Miguel will be all right in with Nico tonight?"

"He'll be fine," Luisa said.

In a thunder of jostling bodies, the children came down the stairs, pushing along a large cardboard box. Miguel guided it to an open spot on the floor, and little Nico pushed open the flaps and started pulling out shawls and ribbons and half a dozen other kinds of family detritus. Miguel extracted a photo album, and for the next hour, he sat between Tía Meche and Papá Isidro, listening to their extended introductions to which belongings went with which picture of their various tíos and tías, and cousins counted out on their fingers. (Some of the cousins were married to each other, and their children's relationship to Miguel had to be calculated.) Enrique was vaguely interested in this; Luisa's eyes were glazed over as she fed Socorro (from a bottle; to her disappointment, that situation had not corrected itself). Miguel, on the other hand, was listening raptly, asking questions about what each person liked. The children were ready to jump in on this. ("Prima Sabri loved pineapples! Tío Tomi had a funny mustache!")

They went straight back on their line through to their own great-great-grandparents before the trail seemed to grow cold. But stories had been told about them to their grandchildren, and to _their_ grandchildren, and now to their grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren. In the land of the dead, they were probably getting a boost. Enrique amused himself thinking of people who would have been old enough to be Mamá Imelda's grandparents going out for a stroll along the cobblestoned streets he'd imagined for Miguel's tale, maybe doing a little bit of shopping.

"And you have music from everywhere," Loli said. "Mamá Meche sings."

"You do?" Miguel asked.

Meche nodded. "Maybe I'll teach you a song later."

"And her mother sings, and her father sings, and…"

"Loli, we get the idea," Meche said.

"I didn't know any of this," Luisa said, pulling herself up from her semi-glazed state and re-arranging Socorro on her shoulder. "Papá, you never told me you came from music people."

"Why do you think I let people in to tune that beautiful guitar? It was a sin, letting it hang in a tomb, untouched." He tipped his cowboy hat at Miguel.

Miguel seemed delighted with all of this. "So Tío Sandro was a farmer?"

"Yes. He had to move to the valley, of course. He grew fine beans."

"And Papá Angel" - he pointed to his great-great grandfather on the rough tree Papá Isidro had drawn - "wanted to be a priest, but he changed his mind."

"Love will do that," Papá Isidro said and winked at Luisa, who had, as a young girl, genuinely thought she was going to be a nun.

"But he sang prettily in Latin," Meche said. "A nice baritone voice."

"Did anyone write songs?"

"Not songs," Papá Isidro said. "But we've had a few poets." He pointed at some scraps of ancient, yellowing paper that were pasted into the book. "Weren't those Tía Maribel's, like those blankets?" He pointed at some nicely woven brown and white blankets that had come out earlier without much introduction.

Miguel leaned forward eagerly to read the poems, then blushed when he realized they weren't in Spanish. "Um… what do they mean?"

Meche rolled her eyes and shook a finger at Papá Isidro, but didn't bother with a full scold. "They're love poems. And I think they _were_ songs, actually. Papá Angel always used to talk about how his mother, Mamá Gracia, used to sing at the dances, and _she_ told him that she used to sing with her big sister, who was so talented that she went off to the big city to make her fortune." She snorted. "Of course, that's what she told Papá Angel. He found out from someone else that she really ran off with some boy when she was sixteen. It's always some boy. Girls, don't let there be some boy. Boys, don't be some boy." She shook her finger lazily at the gathered children, who all looked bewildered by this advice.

Papá Isidro said something to her in Zapotec, and gave her a hard smile.

She shrugged and answered him in a casual way, then pointed at the poems. "She left behind a lot of these poems. Mamá Gracia saved them all. She never did see her sister again. It was war time. Or it would be very soon after. Who knows what became of her?"

"Can I scan them?" Miguel asked, getting out his phone.

"Be my guest, but don't expect to be able to send them far. Our connection is terrible."

"I can just keep them on the phone until I get home," Miguel said. "And I'll learn how to read them properly."

"Miguel," Luisa said, "be careful what you promise. You have a lot on your plate."

Miguel looked sheepishly at his great-aunt. "Well… I will, but it might take a while."

"You could come up here and stay for a while this summer. Total immersion."

Enrique didn't think this was a half-bad idea, given the craziness about de la Cruz which was likely to be breaking by then, but if the internet connection was as bad as Meche suggested, that would mean dropping music lessons, and he didn't think Miguel would want to do that.

Miguel just smiled politely, like he had for years when the family talked to him about shoes, and nodded helplessly in Papá Isidro's direction.

"Miguel has a life in Santa Cecilia," Papá Isidro said. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but there's nothing stopping _you_ from coming down the mountain to visit."

"I told you all the things stopping me," Meche said, pointing at her grandchildren. She moved the album off of her lap and laid it down on a table. "Now," she said, "I thought we could have a walk around town. And a few people want to say hello in the plaza. What do you say? Luisa, I think I have a spare stroller somewhere for Socorro. Or do you like carrying her in a sling?"

"Oh, she likes the sling. But my back is tired. Enrique, would you mind…?"

"Oh, yes," he said dryly. "You know how I hate carrying the baby."

"Can I carry her?" Miguel asked, holding out his arms.

Luisa looked at Enrique, who shrugged, then helped Miguel into the baby sling.

Meche watched this with approval. "Language aside," she said, "you're raising him well."

"Yes, hermanita, and I'm sure they were just waiting for your blessing," Papá Isidro said, rolling his eyes at his sister.

The children rushed into the kitchen and got a lunch out of the refrigerator, packing it into a large woven sack and chattering happily about showing Miguel the basketball court and the plaza and the church and the graveyard and possibly a few individual strands of mountain grass. Loli wanted to pick flowers for the table at dinner, which the others mostly didn't like, but Miguel said he would enjoy, and she could show Socorro all the best ones.

"Did you hear that?" Loli asked, quite unnecessarily. "_I_ can show flowers to the baby."

Perhaps because she took this responsibility seriously, perhaps because there wasn't much else to look at in San Pedro Ayahuitl, the children were constantly distracted, making the climb up the hill toward the town square very slow. Enrique and the other adults still stayed behind the children, keeping an eye on them. Miguel periodically squatted down at the roadside beside Loli, showing various flowers to Socorro. Chayo climbed the rocks at the roadside and jumped down on her brother. Luchi had a slingshot, which he used to fire rocks over the drop-off (Meche had to yell at him twice as they walked to not fire them in the direction of his sister).

Meche dropped in beside Luisa. "So… these fancy people you know now. You're being careful?"

Luisa didn't pretend not to understand. "_Very_ careful. And…" She looked at Enrique, who, since he'd already thought it himself, was not surprised when she said, "And if it gets really crazy, do you think Miguel could come up here to stay for a bit? He won't like giving up lessons, but there are strange people in the world."

"Why don't you all come up if it's wild? The reporters will suddenly find people not able to give them directions. Our cousin Sabel lives down the mountain a bit. She could spread it around that reporters need a little… _mis_direction." She smiled, and it was the same smile that her brother and Miguel had, when an outrageous course of action occurred to them. "There _are_ benefits to small towns, mija. We can take care of each other."

"I can run interference back home by myself," Enrique said. "If it gets crazy."

Luisa nodded. It wasn't much of a plan, and it might never come to fruition, but it was good to know that it was an option. And it might not even take prima Sabel to misdirect. Anyone in Santa Cecilia could easily forget where Luisa's family came from.

"Have you found anything out, other than family history?" Meche asked, as the children crested the hill ahead, and Nico pointed toward the area where Enrique thought the basketball court was.

"I had a message from our detective friend just before we left," Enrique said. "_He's_ talking to Miguel's teacher about the music, and he thinks he can get an order for the studio to turn over any materials, based on what Carlos has found. That would include the song book. And he's following up another lead about trains. He said he had a theory, and he'd tell me more about it soon. He's checking on something this weekend. He'll send a text if anything comes of it." Enrique considered this. "Is there anywhere in town where a text is more likely to get through?"

"The plaza. It's not great, but there's a satellite link, and there's usually enough for a call or a text. We'll probably be there for a while, if you want to try."

Papá Isidro frowned. "How long do you expect us to stay in the plaza, Meche?"

"Like I said, there are people who want to say hello. I told them Luisa was bringing her son up, and he wanted to learn his history."

"What did you set up?"

But they crested the hill themselves before Meche answered. About twenty old men were gathered in the plaza, lounging on benches and watching the children, who had joined some of their fellows and were playing with an old basketball (Miguel had carefully transferred Socorro to Loli, and was trying unsuccessfully to make a free throw). All of them had bags that seemed to be stuffed with various things like the box of memories at Meche's place.

Once Meche had led the adults into the plaza and gotten them settled on the benches, one of the men reached into his bag and pulled out an ocarina.

He didn't do anything particularly flashy with it. He just started playing an old tune, a pretty sort of thing that sounded like wind coming through the valleys.

It was the right approach.

Miguel, who had been holding up the basketball and measuring for another shot, tipped his head and listened. After a moment, he turned around and saw everyone gathered. He passed the ball to another boy (not one of his cousins, at least not as far as Enrique knew) and smiled apologetically, then reached down and picked up Socorro from Loli's arms and started over, Loli tagging determinedly behind him.

"That's nice," he said to the man, as he finished up the song.

The man nodded to him, then reached into the bag and brought out another ocarina. "For you," he said. "Meche says you're a musician."

Miguel handed Socorro to Enrique and took the instrument. "I don't play this."

"It's simple. Let's try it. Just blow, the finger holes control the tone."

Miguel made a few experimental sounds, moving his fingers around, then managed a bit of a scale. He took it away from his mouth and smiled. "Neat, thanks, but I can't take things, it looks valuable…"

"It's made of mud. It's the player who makes it valuable." He made an offering gesture with his hand. "Please, give it value. It's not old and has no connections. I just made it last week."

Miguel smiled. "Thanks, then. I'll learn it. I don't know what my teacher will think. I think he only plays guitar and a little piano for composing. Well, maybe a little tiny bit of other things."

"So, what are your questions?" one of the other men asked. "Not enough children ask questions these days."

Miguel looked anxiously at Enrique, who was quite certain that Miguel didn't have a single specific question that he meant to ask twenty old men he'd never met before.

"There's a lot we don't know," Enrique said. "Why don't we start with the town? What's it doing way up here…?"

The answer, as he'd expected, was that it was originally built as a defensive fortress against the Aztecs, then the Spanish, like so many of the mountain villages. But that led to the particular history - to the missionaries and the battles and the revolution and the peccadilloes of daily life. They played music, and they told stories, and, as the sun set, they lit a bonfire, with what seemed like the whole town gathered around. Hot cocoa was passed out, and more songs were sung, and the stars, so close here, appeared in the sky.

Socorro was passed from cousin to cousin, and she only cried a little bit. Like Miguel, she was a curious baby, and she seemed to want to touch and learn everyone's faces.

Enrique had found himself caught up in the tales and songs, and enthralled at watching his son learn. By the fourth or fifth song, he was reasonably competent on the little ocarina, and through the stories, he sat cross-legged, occasionally noodling tunes, almost unconscious of it. It seemed in some way like they'd stepped back in time, or stepped _out_ of time, into some eternal world where the village simply went on and on, the people gathered around a fire, as humans had gathered around fires since they lived in caves. It was a good, healthy feeling.

It all felt so old-fashioned that at first, Enrique didn't even recognize the buzzing of his phone in his pocket. It was completely incongruous with anything going on around them.

But Luisa, sitting beside him, felt it as well, and tapped his arm.

He blinked and came back to the specific present, to the spring of 2018, and he pulled the phone out. The screen was glowing. There were only two bars showing the connection, but it was there. And there was a new text message from Calles.

Luisa's eyes widened.

Enrique tapped the notification, and the message window opened.

_I found something. Maybe everything. Do you think you could get to Juarez this month? Don't bring Miguel this time. If it's what I think it is, you're not going to like it._


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

_Te cantaré de un alma errante y perdida,  
una historia de amor y valentía -  
Una chica y un paseo para su despedida  
un una noche en que quería bailar._

_I'll sing you a song of a wandering soul,  
a story of pluck and romance -  
A tale of a girl and a long midnight stroll  
On a night that she wanted to dance._

"What would happen if we built a ship?" Héctor asked, sitting on the low sea wall and staring out across the water. He reconsidered. "Well, if _you_ did. Given that I can't even keep shoes from leaking, I would probably not be useful for that."

Julio shrugged, not bothering with the kind corrections that Imelda and Coco tended to make when Héctor pointed out that he had no talent whatsoever at shoemaking, and did not seem to be developing one through practice. "I don't know. We're looking east, though, and if this is like the old world, then we pretty much have a shallow bay for an hour or so, then we dock in Chiapas. We'd probably never lose sight of the land."

"And if we turned around and sailed west?"

"A whole lot of ocean." Julio beckoned to the twins, who were currently experimenting with a flying machine that involved bicycle pedals, flapping wings, and a pair of duck-like alebrijes. "Tío Felipe! What's across the ocean?"

Felipe let go of the machine, which promptly dragged Oscar across the cobblestones, his bones rattling an uneven rhythm until he caught himself. "Don't know." He came over, thinking. "You might pass a lot of the little islands. I think you'd eventually hit… the Philippines, maybe? If it's like the maps I remember."

"Would we get to China?" Héctor asked.

"We're south of China. I mean, we could turn north. Or just sail northwest in the first place. But if we didn't, I think we'd hit French Indochina."

"They reincarnate there," Oscar put in. He'd managed to subdue the flying machine and was pulling it behind him like a kite. The duck alebrijes jumped into the sea. "At least that's what they think at the library. Maybe if we made a ship, we could go there and get reborn instead!"

"And forget everything?" Julio asked. "No thank you. I'll stay here."

"Me, too," Héctor said. "I'll sing with my wife and eat with my family and wait for Miguel so we can sing together again. I don't want to forget."

"But… bodies!" Oscar said. "I'd have a nose to put my glasses on."

"But you might not have a twin," Julio pointed out.

"Why would that happen? We're twins. Of course we would be twins again." Oscar took a seat beside Héctor, and Felipe sat down on his other side, lounging comfortably. They might have been back in Santa Cecilia, looking out over the fields below during the wild years of the war, wondering what the soldiers were doing, or if they were going to get this far. (They never had; many people had left Santa Cecilia to fight, but the fighting itself hadn't come there.) The boys had followed Héctor everywhere when they were little. He'd forgotten that over the years, but it was starting to come back. While Imelda toiled at whatever sewing job she'd found to keep steady food on the table - as opposed to the occasional extravagances Héctor sometimes provided with his music - they would all tromp around the countryside together, and the twins would spin fabulous fables while Héctor ostensibly kept an eye on them, but really mostly played his guitar and wrote them little songs to go with their stories.

"_Would_ we reincarnate?" Felipe asked. "I mean, the people who live there might, but it's not what the living would think of _us_ doing, because our living don't believe that."

"What if the living stop believing anything?" Julio tossed a stone into the water. A fish alebrije leapt up at the splash, but seemed disappointed at the offering. "What if they remember us, but don't believe anything in particular about where we are?"

"I don't think you can remember without imagining," Héctor said. "And whatever you believe, the world you come from shapes your imagining. And their imagining shapes our world."

"Huh," Felipe said. "What if Oscar and I had married a pair of Swedish girls? Would they be in Valhalla, drinking ale and waiting for Ragnarok while we're here?"

Oscar nodded. "And what if Ragnarok happened in Sweden? Would the world end here, too?"

"You two make my head spin," Héctor said, and gave his skull a twirl. (It didn't move as easily as it once had, and he only got one good revolution before it locked back into place.)

"What are we talking about?" Victoria asked. She, Coco, and Imelda were headed over from the market square with baskets of food.

"The twins' theoretical Viking wives, and whether or not they'll cause the end of the world before we reincarnate in French Indochina," Julio said.

"That's called Vietnam now, Papá," Victoria said. "For a long time. Also Laos and Cambodia."

"Papá Héctor started it," Julio said.

"Felipe said it first," Héctor pointed out. He got up and went to the big picnic table that overlooked the sea from the point.

"I wanted to make sure you understood what I meant," Felipe said.

Imelda rolled her eyes. "Hypothetical Viking wives. This is why I never could find you _real _wives. This is really the subject?"

"We were wondering if our Viking wives would be here with us, or if they'd be stuck in Sweden."

"Maybe people can choose," Coco suggested. "One or the other. Or can we move around? Maybe they could go back and forth, just like they would have in life."

"_Can_ we move around?" Victoria asked. "I never tried."

"I've never found a way out," Héctor said. "But then, no one would imagine a way for us, because we belong here with each other. Maybe if everyone thought of you with Inga and Astrid - "

"They have names now?" Imelda asked, trying to hide a grin.

"Oh, yes," Héctor said. "Inga and Astrid. Identical twins, naturally. They are six feet tall, have yellow hair, and ski everywhere, even in town, with no snow. They bring snow with them. It falls around them in a little cloud."

"Of course it does."

"Anyway, if the living all thought of you as wanting to travel with Inga and Astrid, then maybe you'd find your way to an airport, or one of those ships with dragon heads would just show up now and then."

"Which brings us back to the interesting question of whether or not we'd have bodies if we went there," Oscar said.

"Of all things," Héctor said to Imelda, grinning wryly, "he misses his nose."

She rolled her eyes lavishly. "Inga will be very disappointed that you're wishing for your nose. Or is Astrid yours?"

"Oh, Astrid, certainly. Inga would never look at anyone but Felipe. Shame on you for thinking such things about your sister-in-law, Mamá Imelda."

Coco had set her basket on the stone table and started pulling out the food they'd gotten. It was the usual vague and generic food, more an idea of food than real food. Only on Día de Muertos did the good stuff appear again. But she presented it prettily, setting a full table for the family, because that was the point of it. "I hope they could travel," she said. "It would be very sad if people were trapped in different worlds forever. And there are a lot of people who marry across lines now. Has anyone met anyone here who isn't Mexican? Who's just married to someone who is?"

They all looked at Héctor, who'd been here longest. He shook his head. "I don't know. I do know that I never met anyone who wasn't a skeleton, so if they come here, they must become skeletons when they do."

"Which means we'd have bodies in Valhalla," Oscar said. "I mean, if they're here and they're like us."

"We should visit there," Imelda whispered, giving Héctor's shoulder a squeeze as she sat down beside him.

He managed not to laugh (nervously, as much as anything else), but it was a close thing. "We don't know they're here, though," he said, to cover it up. "It could be that they go somewhere else."

"No, they must be," Coco said. "It would be too unkind if they couldn't be with the people they loved."

"Maybe there's a place for people who belong in two places, and everything is true there," Felipe suggested.

"But then they wouldn't have their families," Coco pointed out.

"And that might be the way it is." Julio sat down beside her. "Maybe that's the cost of moving away. Maybe you lose everything. We don't see a lot of our cousins from Spain here."

"Your cousins from Spain are nine or ten generations away, querido," Coco said. "You didn't know them in life, either."

"But that's the whole point. I might run into Mexican cousins that distant, but not Spanish ones. That tie is sundered."

"This is getting depressing," Victoria said, and reached for some bread. "The living world is getting smaller, not bigger. I'm sure that all of this" - she pointed vaguely at several buildings - "makes allowances for the world getting smaller. We just don't know them because they don't apply to us. Maybe Miguel will marry a Viking, and we'll find out."

"More likely, it will be Abel," Coco said. "He was becoming quite the ladies' man. He brought different girls around all the time. I could see him bringing home a Swedish girl."

This shifted the conversation, as it always did (and as Coco had undoubtedly intended). Since Miguel's visit, the family had been quite curious about the other living children, who usually were asleep before the long conversations the adults apparently had on Día de Muertos (to which the dead were, of course, invited) and Coco had spent many of her last years looking after them while the family worked. There wasn't much to say yet about the twins, Benny and Manny, who mainly liked to run wildly around the courtyard. Coco had sung to them as she'd sung to all of the others, but only Miguel had really responded. ("Though Rosa always listened carefully," she said.) Abel was an athlete and very popular in school. He was also a good artist, though he kept that quiet from his friends. Rosa loved her books.

"She read to me, toward the end," Coco said. "I always liked stories, but I couldn't see well enough to read. I couldn't say much to her about them, but she would sit with me after school and read things."

"What kind of stories did you like?" Héctor asked.

"Oh, I loved stories with dragons. She read _The Hobbit_ to me twice when she was nine. She finished it, and I asked her to go right back to the beginning." She smiled mischievously. "The last couple of years, she found some romances. I liked those. But I had to promise not to tell Berto and Carmen that she had them. She read me one about a vampire, of all things, and a werewolf. It was quite silly, but we had fun with it. And there was a boy wizard, and one about a boy who goes hunting for a beast in South America. He has his grandmother with him, so we had fun with that one, too." She smiled sadly. "I wish I could have talked more. We could have imagined much better. But I kept forgetting my words."

Imelda reached across the table and held Coco's hand. "You remember them now, and someday, after a long while, you can tell Rosa how much you liked the stories."

"There will be a new baby by now," Coco said.

"There will? You didn't tell us that!"

"Yes, Luisa was almost ready when I left. Miguel will be someone's big brother these days." She sighed. "I wanted to stay and see what sort it would be, and maybe hum something - maybe even where Elena could hear - but I didn't quite make it."

"Well, she won't need secret humming," Imelda said. "Maybe Elena will sing to the baby herself these days. I hope so."

"Speaking of singing," Julio said, "are you two going to the plaza again tonight?"

Héctor shook his head. "No. Clara wants us to put together a whole concert, though. Frida thinks it should be in the stadium. She showed me some art ideas for it."

"No!" Imelda said, pretending to wince. "No more dancing Fridas."

"You wouldn't have to dress up like her this time."

She sighed. "I don't want to do a concert, Héctor. I'm happy being a shoemaker who loves to sing with her husband sometimes."

Héctor looked down. "I'm sorry."

"For asking? Don't be. And if you want to do a concert, I'll be in the front row this time. Sorry if Frida is already doing art…"

Héctor laughed. "Oh, she'd be doing it, anyway. It's what she loves. I told her the chances were pretty slim."

"But you could…"

"No. I think I'd rather it just be something that makes us happy. We'll sing in the workshop. Standing room only. Let the Fuentes kid have the big shows. He's good."

Imelda nodded, but gave Héctor a strange little smile. She let the subject drop. The family settled around the picnic, made up more stories about Astrid and Inga, and kept each other entertained as the sun set, sending golden bands across the bay. Coco told more stories of the children, and once things were calm and peaceful, Héctor asked for stories of the other adults, who he had never seen. He'd know them on sight, he was sure, and he was assured that he would like everyone (even the stubborn Elena), but that wasn't the same as knowing the silly little details of their lives that made them seem real. He was still vague about Elena's husband Franco, and had only sketchy information about Berto and Gloria, and almost nothing about Berto's wife, Carmen. He even felt a little bit lost on Miguel's parents - his own great-grandson Enrique, and his wife Luisa.

"She's such a pretty thing," Coco said. "I was about to give Enrique up like the tíos - "

"How old was he?"

"Well, only thirty, but he hadn't shown any signs of even looking for a wife." She shook her head. "Then one morning, just before Día de los Muertos, he and I went to the tomb to tune the guitar, and the sexton's daughter was waiting at the door. She was eighteen, and such a picture. I think Enrique fell in love on the spot. Miguel looks like her, actually."

"I thought Miguel looked like _me_," Héctor said, pretending to be hurt.

"He has your hair, mi cariño," Imelda told him, and gave him an exaggerated pat on the back.

"Anyway, Enrique was always sure he was robbing a cradle, but Luisa is a persistent girl. I liked her right away. I had a stroke before the next year, and she started letting him into the tomb alone to tune the guitar. I wasn't surprised when they announced their engagement. Enrique was so much happier after that."

"I don't remember him being unhappy," Victoria said. "He always had friends. He played basketball with them."

"Yes, and they all got married and had children and settled into that part of life. Enrique was still wandering around wondering where they'd all gotten off too." Coco poured herself some wine. "But after Luisa came along, he came back to himself. He was so happy when Miguel was born. You'd think no one else had ever been a father in the history of the world."

"We all feel that way, mija," Héctor said.

"And we're all right about it," Julio put in. "No one else has ever been the same father we will be. And we're a different father to each child, too. Victoria and Elena both needed different papas, so I got to be a new Julio for each of them."

"You were always the same Julio," Coco said. "You just always know what people need in the world."

As usual, this turned into a general conversation about what their lives had been like. This always made Héctor a little melancholy. Not sad, exactly, but it made him feel all the things that had been taken from him. What would he have been like as a father to a teenage daughter instead of a toddler? What kind of grandfather might he have been? It was hard to tell. He had over a hundred years of memories and experiences, and they had made him grow, but in his mind, he was still the twenty-one year old boy who'd followed Ernesto off on the road. Imelda said that she mainly felt like the twenty-something young mother she'd once been, but he suspected that she was only saying that to make him feel better about never having a chance to be old.

He let them talk around him. Imelda's fingers wound through his eventually, and she leaned on his shoulder, and the brief grayness lifted. They'd lost time, but Miguel and Coco had given it back to them. They were remembered solidly, and would be for many years to come, and there was no reason that they wouldn't be spending the next century together.

After the meal, the sun was down and a pleasant breeze came in over the water, possibly blowing through from all of those islands and continents far away, where people were reincarnating or preparing for Ragnarok, or maybe just looking down from some fluffy cloud to keep track of their beloved descendants. The family got up together and headed home, walking together through the winding streets of the city. Héctor looked up at the sky, where little bridges briefly flashed into being and then disappeared as newcomers arrived at Marigold Grand Central. He had once haunted the plaza there, trying to rush at those fragile things, desperate to get home. He hadn't been the only one. Most people gave up after a while.

Imelda lifted his hand and put it over her shoulder, leaning against him and slipping her arm around his waist as they walked, her hand resting on his hip bone.

When they got back to the house, everyone disappeared up to their floors. He heard Coco turn on a record player, and knew she and Julio were dancing. Rosita and Victoria were most likely playing cards on their floor, and whatever the twins settled into seemed to involve loud explosions from time to time.

Imelda sat down at her work table and pulled out a set of pumps she'd been working on. Héctor got his guitar (found leaning against the wall, though he was fairly sure he'd left it in the practice room), and sat across from her, playing a quiet song.

She watched his fingers for a while, then shook her head and went back to the shoe. "Héctor, do you want to do the concert?"

He stopped playing. "What?"

"The concert that the girl - Clara? - was talking about."

"I thought we'd set that aside."

"No. I said _I_ didn't want to do it, and you went along with it. There's a difference. What do _you_ want?"

"The same thing I've wanted for the last century. To be with my family. To be your husband."

"I'm a shoemaker," Imelda said. "That doesn't make me not a mother and grandmother, and it certainly doesn't make me not your wife."

"That's different."

"Why? Because it's not a real vocation? Because you think it doesn't matter as much to me, so it can't be a rival?"

"Are you angry at me?"

"No." She stared at the shoe. "For what it's worth, I love shoes. I love making them exactly right. I love seeing people wearing my shoes out on the street. I get up in the middle of the night sometimes if I have an idea for a really nice pair. That's why this world provided a workshop for me."

"All right…"

She set the shoe down and came around the table, putting her hands over his on the guitar. "I love singing with you again. It's been fun, going out onto the plaza. And it means everything to me that you still want me up there with you."

"You're still amazing."

She smiled. "I am, sort of. I'm very good actually. And I love it. But all I ever wanted was for it to be part of me. To sing at the top of my lungs and to hear you play and to dance… for _myself_. For you. To be as good as I could be. But I was right about one thing. You _did_ want to play for the world. You once told me that you wanted to know if the world would think you were as good as I did."

"Well, I have my answer. Ernesto made himself very famous on my songs. They loved my songs. So I know the answer, I don't need - "

"Héctor, please," Imelda said, leaning her forehead against his. "Please stop trying to be what you think I want. Please just be Héctor. I want _him_ very much. And I saw him earlier, talking to the twins and Julio. I sing with him at the plaza sometimes. But I wanted you to come out to the plaza because I couldn't think how else to get you to be _you_ again! Full time, I mean. Not just when you forget that I'm looking."

Héctor carefully disentangled their hands and set the guitar down against the workbench. He took her hands again. "Imelda, I walked away. I can't think about all of those things - concerts, fame, any of it - without remembering where it led to: A poisoned drink and a grimy train station. I traded everything that mattered for _that_." He kissed her forehead. "Of course, it wouldn't have been worth the trade even if it hadn't ended where it did…"

"And you wouldn't have done it!" She turned away from him and went to the window. "Or weren't you really coming home?"

"Of course I was!"

"You didn't trade us. And if you'd come home and Ernesto had been a sane human being, he'd have bought your songs - maybe not 'Remember Me,' but the others - and you'd have been my husband and Coco's father _and_ a musician. Maybe they would have even put you in movies, too, and it wouldn't have meant you'd have left us. _I_ was the one who made it an ultimatum. You never wanted it to be a conflict." She crossed her arms. "I know some men thought you should stop me having a business. That was another thing de la Cruz harped on, how I shamed you by making more money. But you never even asked me to stop."

"Well, it never bothered me, Imelda. That makes it a little different. And I know you love your shoes. But you didn't have shoe fans lining up outside the door asking you for one little kiss along with a polish."

She gave him a sharp look, then smiled. "And here you told me that only happened to Ernesto."

"That was a lie," Héctor said. "But I told them I was married and turned them away, and that is the truth."

"I appreciate it."

"The lie or the truth?"

"Both." She took a deep breath. "And in the spirit of truth-telling, Héctor… _real_ truth-telling: What do you want to do?"

Héctor thought about it. There was a part of him, and not a small part, that wanted to be up on that stage, hearing the applause, playing his songs. He didn't want to be there alone, though. And in the end, he wasn't sure it was the performance he wanted. The applause was nice, but what he enjoyed most - and always had - was the part that came before it. The writing. The rehearsing. Working on arrangements. He did enjoy setting up big shows, but that was the part of the work he enjoyed: creating the show, and working with other creative people. As for performing, he'd always enjoyed smaller venues. He loved being on stage and clowning and singing and talking to the audience, but that was almost impossible in a big stadium show, where the crowd was just a faceless mass. The plaza was fine. It was like the plaza in Santa Cecilia, or the theater there, where he could see people enjoying themselves. It was a little bigger than playing in a tavern - which he also enjoyed - but it wasn't an ocean of faces turned up at him, none with any particular meaning.

"I want to be a musician again," he finally said. "But I don't want a big concert. I want to write songs. I want to sing with you. But if the songs are going to be in a big stadium… as long as no one is pretending I didn't write them, I'm perfectly happy for someone else to perform them. Maybe I could even help put the shows together."

Imelda looked at him for a while, obviously trying to judge the truth of his statement, then finally nodded. "All right, then. In that case… why don't you go work on that during the day? Help Frida with a big show. Write the songs for it. Write an opera about Astrid and Inga doing ballet on their skis if you want to. But don't waste every day pretending you want to learn about shoes. I know you don't."

"I do want to be with you. I… ballet on skis?"

"Who says I can't have ideas?"

"Certainly not me." He went over and kissed her cheek. "You won't miss me if I'm gone during the day?"

"Every second, but you can make it up to me at night."

"Or maybe on a trip to Valhalla…"

"Now you're just teasing me."

They held onto each other for a long moment, then Imelda sighed and said, "I really do need to finish the shoes. They're for Frida. You can deliver them when you go tomorrow."

"All right."

"In the meantime, will you play for me while I work?"

"That, mi amor, is a concert I always want to do."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

_May 11, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
There's a lot I want to tell you, but I'm a little scared of something going on here. Papá went to Juarez to meet our friend the detective. He said I couldn't come, and that might mean something really bad. I don't know what's happening, and I wish you were here. I'd just sit with you, like I did when Mamá was sick with the baby who didn't come._

_I guess I'd tell you other things, like I did then. I did go to that concert I told you about last time, with Abril. We had a nice time, but she mostly wanted to know about what it was like to be on television, and if I wanted to be famous. And she showed me off a little bit, like she won a prize. I don't like her as much anymore. I mean, it's okay and I don't hate her, but I'm probably not taking her to more concerts._

_I won a track meet. First place. I was really good at hurdles. And Rosa won a spelling bee. Abel and Tío Berto are making a new hallway that connects the old house to the new house. It will have a sewing room for Mamá and anyone else who wants to learn, so now they won't have piles of fabric in the shoe workshop. But it's mostly to connect the old house. I'm going to fix it up pretty. I'm going to live there when I'm grown. Papá doesn't believe it. He thinks I'll run off for my music, but I won't. I want to have children someday, and I want them to be in Santa Cecilia with their family._

_I can't really think about any of it, though. I wish I were in Juarez. So I would know the worst. I don't know if Papá will tell me everything. Maybe I don't want to know._

_Love,  
Miguel_

Enrique was heartily sick of airports by the time he got to Juarez. It wasn't the flights themselves that had put him in a bad temper - an hour and a half from Oaxaca to Mexico City, then a little less than three hours to Juarez - but the layover in Mexico City had been long. Eight hours. During the day, he might have gone and done something, but the eight hours were overnight.

Carlos had dropped by to keep him company and fill him in on the thesis project, which had taken a sharp turn toward a popularly published book.

"This really wasn't the plan," he'd said. "But de la Cruz is a big subject, and… I suppose people are curious. But I'm going to wait to hear from you and Denny. If…"

But he sighed, and didn't follow it up.

Enrique had resisted the temptation to demand answers over the phone. The more publicity Carlos got for his thesis, the more curiosity-seekers had started ordering Rivera shoes, and the shop had been too busy for a side trip to Juarez until now. Besides, in the follow-up to the original text, Calles had asked for anything that might have Mamá Coco's DNA on it - a hairbrush or a toothbrush - and the family had realized that this meant the breakthrough might be really large. There'd been a search for her old things, and the local medical examiner had agreed to look for useful DNA, but it had taken a couple of weeks.

Enrique was sure that Calles would have told him over the phone what he'd found, but he hadn't demanded, because something told him that these weeks, however madly busy, might be the last in which he didn't know something that he didn't want to know. Calles seemed to understand that, and let him have breathing room.

"Is Miguel okay?" Carlos had asked. "He's doing his work, but he seems a little distant."

"He's worried about this. Plus a girl he liked didn't turn out to be quite what he thought."

"A girl, already?"

"Just a friend who went to that concert with him. Though he dressed up for it a little more than I liked to see."

"Well, these things are going to happen." Carlos had given him a sympathetic smile, then went on to talk about the next steps, once the order for the studio to release the songbook had come through. "De la Cruz had no heirs," he said. "So the studio got control of his assets here in the city. You can get tours through the house. They're spinning like mad. I took the damn tour, you know. In disguise. I heard all about the lies this greedy conservatory student has been making up for some reason. Apparently, this hypothetical person just wants to attack someone who can't defend himself anymore, just to get a book deal."

Enrique winced. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, I'd have done this even if I'd never met your family. This is about a musician who was robbed. I want some justice for that."

They'd talked for another hour, until Enrique had needed to go to his gate. Then the plane was on the tarmac for forty minutes waiting for clearance, and when he got to Juarez, there were delays with the taxis because of a nightclub shooting in the early hours of the day. By the time he got to his hotel, the last thing he wanted was to actually meet with Calles, but he was already late.

He dropped off his traveling bag in his room and went to the hotel restaurant, where they were serving a halfway decent brunch. A piano player was making his way through something soft and light. People were sitting at tables reading newspapers, with headlines about the shooting, which was supposed to be in a "safe corridor."

Dionisio Calles wasn't reading a newspaper. He was sitting at a table behind a screen of leaves from a plant, looking at his tablet and speaking English. Enrique could see it over his shoulder. Three girls with big smiles and freckles, two with long red hair and the third a brunette, were laughing and telling him about something in tones of great excitement. Enrique didn't speak a lot of English (Gloria took most of the shop's international orders), but he picked up something about school, and a show, and a dance. Calles occasionally contributed something, but mostly seemed to be listening with rapt attention.

Enrique cleared his throat.

Calles looked up and smiled wearily, then said something to the girls. They blew him kisses. One said (in an accent that suggested she didn't speak Spanish often) "Adiós, Denny! Hasta luego! Te quiero!" He blew a kiss back and said in English, "Love you, too, Bridie."

"Don't call me Bridie!" the middle girl said.

"How about 'Biddy'?"

"'Bridget''s bad enough," she muttered.

Calles held up his hand to indicate that Enrique should sit down, and he told the girls in English that he had to go, he had a friend here. There was more quick cross-talk, and Enrique caught the names Emily and Abby, then Calles said, in Spanish, "Enough! I'm hanging up." There were calls of "Adiós" and "Love you," then finally, the tablet fell silent.

"Sorry about that," Calles said. "It's my cousin Bridget's birthday. I wanted to talk to them."

"These are the ones who live in a little town?"

"Well, they aren't the ones who hate me," Calles said, and shook it off. "My Tío Kevin's girls. They live in Minnesota. That's _way_ in the north. They sent me snow pictures last winter." He tapped the screen again, and pulled up a picture of two of the girls - the younger redhead and the little brunette - bundled up in heavy clothes, happily playing in a gigantic pile of snow. The redhead was waving a Mexican flag and holding up a sign that said, "Hola, Denny."

"I didn't realize you were close to them."

"I spent summers up there when they were really little, and Mamá and I sometimes go up for Christmas. There are only so many people in the world who think I'm a superhero. Bridget wants to come down and spend a summer in the dangerous big city with me, so I better prove to Tío Kevin that I can keep everyone in the world safe. Our nightclub friends did not help the cause this morning." He smiled. "I've been spending so much time with the dead, I just wanted to touch base with the living. Sorry. I didn't mean to be rude."

"It's fine. They're cute, and they're family." Enrique took a deep breath. "So, what is it?"

"We need to go to the college. The gross anatomy lab."

"On a Sunday morning?"

"I have a friend who has a friend," Calles explained vaguely. "The thing is, what we're going to look at has been there for about forty years. I don't know if it's your great-grandfather or not. It doesn't look very pretty."

"Well, if it's Papá Héctor, wouldn't he be bones by now?"

"I went looking for news from the early twenties about bodies on trains. It was a long shot, but I thought I might find out what town he fetched up in, _maybe_ find a common grave. What I found was _this_."

He tapped something else on his tablet, and the picture of two happy girls in the snow was replaced by a short newspaper article, blown up to fill the whole screen. He handed the tablet to Enrique.

"¡LA MOMIA HABLA!" the headline screamed.

There was no picture. Calles had put in a computer generated line giving the date of the newspaper as November 1, 1922.

_Guanajuato has never been the only place in Mexico where mummies could be found, even if it is the most famous. But here in the Chihuahuan desert, we have a brand new mummy!_

_When the Juarez Express lost three cars in a derailment last December, no one expected there to be casualties other than the textiles they had been carrying. While the freight train was aware that it had lost its last three cars, one of them had remained missing until only last week, having gone over an embankment and buried itself in sand. Until it was found, it was assumed that bandits had carried it off._

_But the load of clothing that was destined for the city of Juarez and the tourist attractions in El Paso yielded more than costumes… buried deep in the pile of cloth, which must have acted like Egyptian bandages, was a derelict who must have stowed away on the train, making for the border. His trip must have been rudely interrupted by the crash!_

_But the train car kept the body safe from coyotes and other desert horrors, and the hot, dry climate did on its own what ancient Egyptians studied for years… it made a mummy… this one dressed in imitation of a mariachi singer! The mummy will be on display in Juarez for two weeks before burial!_

Enrique breathed a sigh, partly of horror, partly of relief. "I thought it might be worse," he said. "This was bad, but I thought… I thought something worse…"

"This is the beginning," Calles said. "I suspected this one because of the date in December, and the mariachi connection. It was the closest train body to the date of the last letter. I started to look into it, to see where it was buried. It never was."

"What?"

"Mummies were big business in the 1920s. Carter was searching for them in the desert in Egypt, and he'd find King Tut's tomb in 1922… November." Calles closed his eyes. "I'm just going to say this straight out and not try to find a way to gentle it, all right? You can find ways to gentle it for Miguel."

"What is it?" Enrique said, through lips that felt numb.

"The mummy was bought by a circus as a sideshow attraction. When Tut's tomb was found in November, it became extremely popular. They toured it around in Chihuahua and Sonora and up into Texas. Sometimes it was dressed up in Egyptian clothes. Mostly not. Mostly it was 'Come see the mariachi mummy!' And they came. Put up pesos and dimes to see it. Some had their pictures taken with it. There was an extra wound put on it to make it look like a violent death, and they said he was a bandido who robbed trains. There were posters. I have them. They -"

"Stop," Enrique said. "Please. Stop."

"If this mummy is your bisabuelo, and Carlos proves that it was his music that made de la Cruz famous, then this is going to be splashed across every television screen in Mexico, and probably beyond. You need to prepare your family for it."

Enrique blinked at him for a minute, then suddenly, his stomach gave a heave. He stood up and ran to the nearest bathroom, and barely made it before everything he'd eaten in the last day came up for an encore.

He heard Calles come in behind him, but didn't look up as he waited for more dry heaves to pass. Finally, the wave cleared, and he found himself kneeling on the bathroom floor. He felt far away from his body. He pushed himself up and leaned against the wall beside the hand dryer. "I'm sorry," he said.

"It's all right."

"It's just… even if he's not Papá Héctor… he was a human being. Why… how…?"

"There are dead human beings on display all over the world. There are almost sixty behind glass in Guanajuato. And the casts in Pompeii. And the Egyptian ones." Calles shrugged helplessly. "And it wasn't so long ago that people didn't see anything wrong with making the dead into circus attractions. This is hardly the only one. I found at least ten in the same situation. One is still in a curiosity shop in Seattle."

"But this one, the one you think is Papá Héctor… he's not on display anymore?"

"No. The sideshow was shut down. The mummy ended up bought by a private collector here in Juarez. It was on display, but in a private home. A young medical student ended up marrying the collector's daughter, and he was disgusted by the whole display."

"I can't imagine," Enrique muttered, reaching across to flush the toilet, now that he was feeling a little more clear-headed.

"He brought the mummy to the medical school. It's not on display, but they _have_ been doing tests on it. There is DNA. That's why I asked you for any of your grandmother's DNA that might be left. A match with his daughter would be conclusive. Were you able to find anything?"

Enrique nodded. "Our local medical examiner found some on the root of a hair in her hairbrush. It was shut in a drawer, so it was still pretty good. I have the report on my phone."

"Good, that will save time. I thought we'd have to extract it ourselves. Are you ready to go over and find out?"

Enrique wasn't entirely certain that he was ready for anything of the kind, but it had to be done. He nodded.

Calles had a rental car, and he drove them up along route 45 to the university, about a fifteen minute drive early on a Sunday morning. The university wasn't the most beautiful Enrique had ever seen, or maybe that was just his mood. By the time they pulled up to the building Calles was aiming for, Enrique had mostly blocked it out. His head was full of visions of mummies, mostly culled from movies he'd seen as a teenager.

A bespectacled young woman in a lab coat came out to greet them. Calles introduced her as Manuela. She seemed very excited as she led them back.

"I hope this is helpful to you. We've wondered who he was. We call him El Viejo. Everyone meets El Viejo eventually. Well, everyone interested in forensic medicine, anyway. We know a lot about him, just not who he is." She opened a cold, sterile looking room full of drawers, the kind of thing that Enrique had thought only existed in the fevered imaginations of screenwriters. She did not, however, open any of the drawers to reveal a body with a toe tag. Instead, she went to an inner room, where a table was set up under carefully positioned lights.

On the table was a desiccated human form. It didn't look like leather. More like something that had been petrified.

"Most natural mummies curl into a fetal position," Manuela said. "But El Viejo must have been laid out lengthwise, and there must have been some pressure on him, because…" She pointed to the fully extended body. "He must have been wrapped in the textiles they found him in. For years, they assumed it was accidental, but we've known for a while that it couldn't have been. So we suspected foul play, which has been proven since. But they should have known then. Someone must have taken the trouble to wrap him up pretty tightly." She picked up a box and opened it, showing a rotting purple jacket, a scrap of an old shirt, and a pair of striped pants. "He was also dressed in clothes that didn't fit him. There was at least one post-mortem break in the arm from being jammed into this jacket."

Enrique stared at the clothes. "You're sure the break didn't happen when the train car crashed?"

"We're sure. This type of break isn't consistent with the position the body was found in. So someone handled the body roughly after death. And something was jammed into the mouth-"

"_What?_"

"We assume a wash cloth," Calles said in a quiet, soothing voice, shooting a look to Manuela that Enrique didn't like much. "Someone cleaned most of the vomit out of his mouth. And… well, you'll see the reports."

"Some vomit was left at the back of the throat," Manuela added. "And there was a false tooth that had been painted with enamel, but someone scraped it off. Probably to confuse identity. If it had been for theft, they'd have taken the tooth itself, which is gold."

She continued to chatter nervously about mummies and how "El Viejo" had been preserved over the years. There was something about a hole in the abdomen that was obviously put there after the mummification, because of… reasons…. and it had been when they'd been advertising him as a bandido who'd been shot trying to rob a train and… Enrique tuned her out and looked at the remains.

They weren't disgusting or frightening, but there was something horribly sad about them. That this was Papá Héctor, he had no doubt about. He still looked like his picture. He had a little beard, a bit fuller than the one in the photo, but still small. His hair was mostly preserved, though that might have been something the circus did, for all Enrique knew. His high cheekbones, sharp nose, and large eyes were there (though Enrique didn't know if there was anything behind the strange, stone-like lids). The clothes were the ones Miguel had described to Abel for the picture he'd made. There was a bloodless hole that had been cut into his gut to make an audience think he'd been shot; it looked more like a knife wound, and why would anyone cut up a mummy? Or any dead body? The head had been pulled back by the contracting neck muscles, and the mouth was pulled into a wide and silent scream.

There was no urge to vomit this time, just to weep, and to hold his great-grandfather the way he might hold his son, to try and make it all right. He reached forward. "May I?" he asked Manuela.

She shrugged. "Be gentle."

Enrique took a deep breath, then put his hand over the shriveled hand of the mummy and held it. For a minute, he struggled with revulsion at the touch, but he reminded himself that this was his great-grandfather, and even if he wasn't, he was a human being who deserved to be treated - for once - as a man. The leathery thing became a person's hand to him, and he gave it a gentle squeeze, then leaned over and kissed the desiccated forehead. "Be at peace, Papá," he whispered, then stood up slowly, let go of the hand, and said, "What do we do from here?"

It turned out to be very technical. He turned over the results of the coroner's report on Mamá Coco's hair, and Manuela started comparing it to tests on El Viejo. While the computer was doing its work, she gave him access to all of the research people had done on the mummy for the last forty years, which was substantial. He sat down at someone's cluttered desk to read through it. Most of it was too technical for him to go through without at least a dictionary, but he caught the salient points.

The first was simple enough: There were traces of strychnine sulfate in the tissues of the body. Rat poison. Easy to get. There was enough present not only to have caused death in a sudden dose, but the researchers theorized that El Viejo may have been ingesting the stuff for a while, as traces were found at the tips of the hair and fingernails. The conclusion was that the man would have felt increasingly ill, and might eventually have died of the gradual poisoning, but that he had been given a massive dose of the stuff just prior to death. A second paper questioned whether it was suicide or homicide, coming down on the side of homicide because of the circumstances of the body's concealment. (That said, this researcher had clearly been fond of his suicide theory, and had spent a good deal of time suggesting that someone was just trying to cover up a loved one's suicide.)

A third paper destroyed the suicide theory by an examination of the mouth, which showed signs not of the tender cleaning of a friend or spouse who simply wanted a clean burial for a suspected suicide, but of rough and nasty handling. Aside from the scraped tooth, there were abrasions on the cheeks from a rough washcloth or a scrub brush, and the whole body appeared to have been scoured. At the time, the murderer probably had fingerprints on his mind, but it had been effective at removing any other trace of the killer as well. Most disturbingly, a piece of rotten meat had been forced to the back of the throat.

"This seems to have been a poor attempt at deflection," the student had written. "A bit of chorizo was lodged in the throat, and was certainly spoiled even at the time, but if it was meant to suggest food poisoning, it was ineffective, as it was clearly placed postmortem and pushed violently into the throat, possibly in an attempt to make it seem half-swallowed, but as it sits above a column of vomitus in the esophagus, it is impossible for it to be have been ingested pre-mortem, or for it to have caused choking and asphyxiation."

Enrique tried to stop the image from coming into his head, but he couldn't. In his mind's eye, he saw the body in the train car, lying on top of a pile of cheap mariachi costumes, its arm broken as it was forced into what might have been a child's jacket. Ernesto de la Cruz (perversely in a costume from one of his movies, in Enrique's imagination) was kneeling over him, maybe even kneeling on his chest, having fished through garbage somewhere to find an old chorizo, which he was forcing into Héctor's throat. Just as an extra precaution? Or had de la Cruz just realized what he'd really done and was desperate to try and conceal it? Or had he actually taken pleasure in desecrating the body?

There was a pause in the papers about El Viejo from the late eighties until about the turn of the century. There were still X rays and a CAT scan and several brief observations, but apparently, the students had found other interests for their term papers.

The research picked up again not long after the human genome project had mapped the whole genome, and interest had been high. There had been plenty of genetic material to work with, and El Viejo's genome had been mapped for years now. Six breathless medical students had written papers that were variations of "Who Was El Viejo? We May Never Fully Know, But…" They _had_ been able to trace his heritage to Oaxaca ("though we don't know if he ever lived there himself"). Careful examination of the non-death related trivia of the body had shown that his fingers were heavily calloused where they would have fallen on guitar strings, so he was almost certainly the musician he'd originally been dressed as. Bone structure showed some evidence of mild malnutrition in childhood, but there were no marks of disease. The shirt (which was largely fused to the torso) fit him well and seemed to be of quality workmanship, so they had determined that he wasn't an indigent man who'd simply ended up on the wrong side of an argument on a train. He hadn't had any genetic abnormalities. Tía Meche would undoubtedly gloat obnoxiously when she found out that, without question, he was of native origin, with only a few traces of European ancestry. Whether he was Zapotec or Nahua or Mixtec was a subject of some debate because they didn't have much in the way of reference populations (there was a long explanation of this that Enrique didn't follow), but they were able to match him on various ancestry sites to families in Oaxaca, albeit distantly.

Enrique smiled ruefully. Mamá had been itching to do "one of those tests where you spit and they tell you where you come from," but they'd never gotten around to it. That might have popped the whole thing open without Calles needing to work his contacts.

On the other hand, Miguel might have discovered it too quickly and without any preparation.

There was a rapping sound, and he looked up to see Calles standing by the door, his hand still raised. "Are you okay?"

Enrique wasn't sure how to answer this. "I… this is very thorough research."

"Manu's been running the tests. She has to wait for a few, and get a corroborating opinion, before she's willing to commit publicly, but she's personally sure. The match to your grandmother's hair is too close for him to be anything but one of her parents."

"I know. I recognized him when I came in the room." Enrique took his phone from his pocket and brought up a scan of the family photo, enlarging Héctor's face. "Did you doubt it, really?"

"No. I had the picture with me the first time I came. Facial recognition didn't pick it up because of the angle on the photo and the damage to the face on the body - the cheekbone is dislocated, probably from the crash - but my eyes are still better than the computer for that." He sat down. "Still, there are doppelgangers in the world. The DNA is more sure than the eye."

"How do I tell my family?" Enrique asked. "How do I tell them that Papá Héctor was turned into a cheap freak show attraction?"

"I'm sure that my message has them worried already," Calles said. "I was vague for a reason. I think they may have worked themselves into thinking something worse, so maybe it will be a relief that it was only humiliating."

Enrique thought this was well-meant, but unlikely to be much comfort to Miguel, who was keenly aware of Papá Héctor's apparent disdain for performing monkeys.

There was nothing else to be done until Manuela's results had come in and been verified, so Calles drove them back to the hotel, where they had an early supper and talked about anything that wasn't mummified.

Enrique went back to his own room afterward and called Luisa. He told her everything. "But I don't want to just tell Miguel over the phone. It's not right. And I should be the one to do it. I saw Papá Héctor. I held his hand. I'll tell Miguel. Just…"

"Enrique, don't put it off. Don't put Miguel off. He's worried sick. I'll get him to the practice room, and we'll call you from there."

He still didn't like the idea of this coming long distance, without being there to put his arms around Miguel, but Luisa would be there. For Miguel. It was Enrique who wouldn't have anyone to hold on to.

And so, the whole family had been gathered in the workshop when Luisa came to get Miguel. Looking at them on the little screen of his phone, which he'd set up on a little stand, gathered in Mamá Coco's old room, with the stolen guitar now hanging on the wall behind them, Enrique wasn't sure he could go through with it.

Miguel stepped forward. "Papá… what is it?"

He stared at his phone for a long time, then found his voice. "We found him," he said. "We found him and I'll make sure he's brought home. That's the important part. But there's more you need to know…"

As he told the story, he watched Miguel melt back. Berto was the one to go to him first and put a steadying arm around him. Luisa held him as well. Rosa wept. Mamá held and comforted her.

When the story was over, Miguel asked if everyone else could leave for a minute. He was crying openly, so he was obviously not trying to cover that up.

"Are you all right, mijo?" Enrique asked.

He shook his head. "Can I come and help?"

"I don't think so. I don't think there's anything for you to do here. But we never would have found him without you."

"Can I help… get him ready… when he comes home? Like Rosa did for Mamá Coco?"

Enrique wasn't sure about this as an idea, but he said, "Yes. Of course. I don't think we'll be able to dress him, though. The body isn't… you can't bend…" He sighed. "I'm sorry."

Miguel looked a little green, but he just nodded. "I'll find him a blanket to keep him warm. Can we clean him up at all?"

"I don't know. I'll ask. And Miguel… will you ask some of your mariachi friends if they'll play for him on the procession? I think he'd like that."

"Me, too."

"It'll be okay in the end."

Miguel smiled somehow. "I know. It's starting to be okay now." He frowned. "Papá, who was the student who took him out of a collection and brought him to the doctors?"

"I don't know."

"Could you find out? I want to say thank you. And to Calles, too."

"I'll pass that on to him. He's staying next door. Are you going to be all right in school tomorrow?"

Miguel thought about it, then shrugged and nodded.

Enrique held out his arms helplessly. Miguel noticed the gesture and held his own out, putting his hands on the computer screen. It didn't quite work, but they both got the message.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**

_Sueño con la tierra donde crecen los gemelos  
Y el dulce perfume de la hierba y el trébol  
Y cuando sueño, o, qué real parece todo ...  
Através del espejo._

_I dream of the land where the twinflowers bloom  
And the sweet perfume of the clover and grass  
And when I dream, oh how real it all seems...  
Beyond the looking glass._

Héctor dreamed of himself as an old man.

This wasn't a dream he'd ever had before. He'd wished to be old, but he'd never really imagined himself into the place of _being_ old.

But now, he was. His body wanted to bend, but at the same time it felt like nothing would move. He could feel the sun beating down on him. At first, he wasn't sure where he was, but then it was clear. He was in Santa Cecilia, in Imelda's workshop. He was just sitting there, enjoying his family around him. His fingers were too stiff to play the guitar anymore, but someone else was playing. Miguel? No. Not Miguel. He never would have lived to see Miguel born. He couldn't tell who it was. Beside him, a little boy with a thick shock of black hair was holding his hand and smiling at him. But he was also crying.

"Hey, niño," he said, picking the child up and putting him on his lap. "What is it? Did the evil spirits steal your tongue?" He made a playful grab at the boy's mouth, which earned him a giggle, then suddenly, the boy hugged him tightly, and Héctor could feel his own heartbeat and the child's melding together, just as he'd felt when he held Coco tightly when she was a child, and now this wasn't even her child, but her child's child, this was…

"Be at peace, Papá Héctor," the boy whispered.

Héctor opened his mouth to protest, to say that he was more at peace than he'd ever been, and how could he not be, with his family around him and the sun shining through the windows of Imelda's shop?

But then he looked across, and the wall had become a mirror. He was bones again – young bones, with his own thatch of black hair. The child was a man, and he _was_ holding Héctor's hand, but he wasn't smiling. He…

Héctor tried to squeeze the hand back, to let the man he now thought might be Miguel's father know that he was all right, but his fingers went right through the warm hand.

He searched for the right name, and finally whispered "Enrique…" but then the dream fell apart and he was shaking himself awake in the semi-darkness of the city's night. Imelda was sitting up beside him. She was wearing a light silk cover over her ribs. A purplish light from the square was playing through the window, casting dancing streaks through her hair, which she'd allowed him to take down earlier.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "Héctor?"

"I just… dreamed about Miguel's father. Talking to me." He told her as much as he could remember.

She nodded thoughtfully. "And that's the first time you've had a dream like that?"

"The first time about someone I've never met…"

"Did you ever dream about Coco or me talking to you? Or de la Cruz, for that matter?"

"I didn't really sleep much until I came here. At first, I did a little bit. I always dreamed about you and Coco."

"Was I sometimes yelling at you?"

"Um… yes?"

"And Coco was… what, rescuing you?"

"Sometimes."

She nodded again. "I think we all pick things up like that when the living are thinking hard about us. Not all the time, but sometimes, if they're feeling connected to us. And if we happen to be asleep at the time."

"Well, then I wouldn't have dreamed about Ernesto. I doubt he gave me a second thought after he killed me. And I definitely didn't sleep for the first week or so. I was at the station all day, all night, waiting for people to arrive. Trying to follow their little bridges. Anything to get back."

"You did that? I saw people doing that when I first came, and I didn't think it would ever work. I'd seen the bridge disappearing behind me."

"And everyone trying it knows that." Héctor sighed. "But when it's sudden, you just feel like there must have been a mistake, like somehow or other, there will be a way to get a do-over. Anyway, if Ernesto gave me any thought at all, it was probably right afterward, wondering if anyone would find my body and figure it out. By the time I finally gave up and moved into the city and started sleeping now and then, he'd probably moved on to some other interest."

"You're probably right about that. But I spent a lot of time thinking about you very intensely."

Héctor thought about it. "I did dream of you sometimes. Sometimes…. Well, as a man dreams of a wife he misses very much."

"That very well could have come from me," Imelda admitted. "I always felt like that was the last thing I should miss, but…" She shrugged. "I always enjoyed being your wife. There may have been more than one time over the years that I was thinking of it very intensely."

"_Were_ you?" Héctor reached across and ran his thumb over the inside of her lowest rib, a trick he'd found out weeks ago made her shiver.

She gave a very satisfying shiver, then shook it off and pushed his hand away playfully. "Of course, I was just as often yelling at you and lecturing you."

"Once, I dreamed we were seeing a moving picture, and you were angry at me, but you wouldn't listen to me. Only I wasn't sure what we were talking about. You kept saying I broke the guitar."

"I saw de la Cruz's first movie. I saw the guitar. I… That was when I went to talk to him and he told me those lies. I was thinking about you a lot then."

"I'll bet."

They didn't talk. Imelda, with a guilty little smile, ran her finger up his vertebrae, making a sound like a primitive percussion instrument. It took his mind entirely off the dream for a moment, but she took her hand away and looked at him sternly. "Sorry. So you dreamed you were with Enrique and he told you to be at peace?"

"Yes. Why would Enrique be saying that?"

"I don't know. But we know they're working on your case. I heard from that woman in the heirloom division – they've canceled the hearing over the guitar because ownership _has_ shifted. She assumes it has something to do with the living, and Coco said Enrique helped her keep the guitar in tune. Maybe he knows you'd have been worried about that."

Enrique shook his head. "I wasn't playing it. I heard it, and maybe it _was_ Miguel. I thought it couldn't be because I thought I was alive, but I wasn't. It was…."

"Symbolic."

"Yes."

"I think symbols make the crossing much more easily than concrete things. They're bridges in a way. At least that's what I think."

"Or maybe things just get jumbled on the trip."

"Also possible."

Héctor took a deep breath. "I don't think it's the guitar. I think it's… I think maybe…"

"They found you?"

"Maybe. Do you think it's possible?"

"It… could be."

"Do you think Ernesto might have buried me somewhere decently after all? Maybe just not told?"

"No." She sighed and stroked his hair. "I don't think he'd have taken that kind of risk. If he'd meant to do that, he'd have told me a lie about a chorizo and let me bury you. I'm sorry, Héctor."

"No, don't be. It's a ridiculous moment of hope. He murdered me and stole everything I had, but maybe he buried me decently, so he really was my friend. You know." Héctor smiled nervously. "I didn't even know I felt that until I said it out loud."

"I knew. Somewhere, I knew you were feeling it. Losing your idol, losing your life…"

"He wasn't my idol."

"You could have fooled me."

"_You_ were my idol. I always wanted to be more like you."

"No, you didn't." She lay down, pulling him down beside her. "You loved me. But the one you always wanted to be was de la Cruz."

"I didn't, though." Héctor curled up beside her, resting against the curve of her ribs. "Not the way he really was. I wanted to be charming and loved by everyone sometimes. I wanted to be who he said he was. But I knew him. I knew most of it was an act. I knew how he was with girls. I hated that. I hated knowing it. So I mostly told myself that I was the one being a prude."

"I remember."

"He wasn't the only one. I knew so many men like that. I didn't want to run around thinking, 'Oh, I'm so much better.' But I _hated_ it, Imelda."

She smiled down at him and stroked his hair fondly. "You would have liked some of the changes that have come along. Even in Santa Cecilia. I think you'll like the world more now than you did then. At least in some ways."

"And other ways?"

"We've lost a lot. The world gets smaller and everyone becomes more alike."

"No harmonies?"

"Fewer harmonies. More cacophonies and stage-hogging solos."

"Is that what it's like when everyone is equal?"

"It was never like that with us…"

Héctor winked. "Well, I never quite rose to being an equal of the empress…"

She didn't smile, as he'd intended. "You once told me that you would never allow anyone to say I wasn't a lady, not even me. I will never allow you to say that we were not equals. You were my partner. My friend. The only person I depended on as much as you depended on me. I will be your empress, but only if you see yourself as an emperor."

Héctor opened his mouth to tell her that he loved her, but words didn't come out. Instead, he just pulled her closer to him, and, entwined, they waited for the morning together.

He gave her a long kiss before they left the room at sunrise. She was the first into the workshop as usual. She had an idea for an interesting heel that she wanted to try. Héctor went to his practice room and worked on a number for a show Frida was sponsoring, based on the ridiculous Viking stories. It was almost an opera, which was a form he'd never even attempted. Usually, he made up a rough narrative to join short songs on the stage. He'd never started with a libretto. Especially one of Frida's. Of course, she had never written an opera before, either. ("Then again, I did not exactly make myself known for staging popular music shows in the living world," she'd said, "but I find I enjoy it. Why should we not enjoy this new thing?") There was a lot of incidental music to write, but Héctor had decided to start with the set pieces.

There would be a comedy number when Astrid and Arturo – the secondary couple – were arguing about the merits of Valhalla versus Mictlan. Astrid was very interested in matters of the body, while Arturo would do some bone separating tricks and extol the glories of flexibility. (The actor they had in mind for Arturo had learned to stack his bones, while singing, until he was about ten feet tall.)

The more serious A plot, about Inga and Timoteo, would need a ballad for each of them, and a duet. The duet was written. It took place across a barrier Frida had imagined, with snow and ice and bodies on one side, and sunlight and skeletons on the other, as they sang about losing each other to different worlds, and how they longed to reach through the barrier. Héctor had worked closely with Frida on this one, because she had a lot of ideas once the concept had occurred to her. She'd apparently taken many lovers who she hadn't seen and thought she never would because they didn't belong here, and she was wondering what had become of them.

Inga's solo was this morning's project. Through a series of events that finally brought her across (with her faithful sister, Astrid), she had been turned into a skeleton, and her flying stallion had become a multicolored alebrije – horselike, but with a bird's beak and tailfeathers, and a dragon's claws. She'd started out enchanted by it, and thrilled to be with Timoteo, but she was homesick. Oscar had come up with the interesting trivia that one of Sweden's national flowers was called the twinflower, and that was the basis of the song…. The twinning of Inga and Astrid, the pairing of Inga and Timoteo, and even the mutually reflective worlds of Mictlan and Valhalla. No flowers grew here, and Inga would walk along the shore and sing about twinflowers, and why the world couldn't be like they were, with both blossoms on the same shared stem. Frida loved this idea. "The stem is humanity!" she had cried when Héctor had brought it up. "That's right, isn't it? The stem is humanity and the blossoms are what we make of ourselves?"

Héctor, who'd until then mostly thought of it as a pretty flower and an interesting coincidence, given the twin theme, had felt it snap into place when she said that, and he'd been hard at work on it for days. He'd never listened to Scandinavian music before, and it turned out to be hard to come by here. Oscar's friends in the library had finally found some. It had a flavor that felt to Héctor like the seafaring adventures that they'd once had, lilting with the waves and soaring with the winds. He'd need to find someone who could play the pipes. Barring that, he thought he could find an oboe player who could get a reasonably good sound in a pinch. Gustavo had toyed with more than the violin over the years.

He closed his eyes to try and imagine the scene again. Inga, in a stable with the alebrije. She would have her hand on its mane at the start. The song began softly, as she remembered the fields where her horse had grazed. Green, so green, with daisies and clovers and most of all the twinflowers. It would start a capella, with the instrumentation coming in softly and gradually.

_Be at peace, Papá Héctor._

The stable – flimsy and whimsical dream that it was – disappeared in his imagination, and he was in the workshop again, with his living family. Enrique, both child and man, was beside him. Miguel was… what was he doing?

He was playing the guitar. The real one. Héctor closed his eyes and saw everything with complete clarity. Miguel was sitting in a quiet room filled with photographs. One was the photo of Héctor and his family. He had been up all night. There were guttering candles around him, but he was still playing. His fingers were bleeding. (Héctor was not as concerned about this as he supposed most people would be; he'd played his own fingers bloody more than once, and that had certainly not been what had killed him.) But now he was exhausted, and he was drifting off to sleep.

And so was Héctor. He felt himself drowsing in the morning sun, his pen slipping from his hand as the dream? Vision? became clearer.

Beside him, Enrique became more solidly a man. He was pulling a suitcase that seemed to have wheels and a handle built into it, and he left it beside the door, out in a courtyard. He knelt beside Miguel and said, "Mijo, you need to sleep. Your mamá says you've been here all night."

"Papá? You're back already?"

"Yes. I've talked to them. Everyone is working to help him, Miguel. _Everyone_. We're not alone in this. But you said you were ready for school."

"I was. I did go."

"And you left after lunch. You stopped in the middle of a test. Your teachers were worried."

"Sorry."

"Don't say you're sorry, talk to me."

Miguel shrugged helplessly. "I was trying to talk to Papá Héctor," he said, pointing at the guitar. "But it didn't work."

"Yes it did, chamaco!" Héctor said, going forward. "Come on, mijo, listen to me. Talk to me."

"How would you know?" Enrique asked. "Maybe he's listening. What did you want to say?"

Miguel opened his mouth, then frowned and gave a strange little laugh. "I don't even know. I've been trying to talk to him all night and I don't know what I want to say!"

"How about, we found you and we're bringing you home?" Enrique suggested.

Héctor looked up. "You did?"

"Yeah," Miguel said. "Yeah, that's good. But what about the rest? The mummy? The… circus."

"You don't need to tell him that. There are other ways for him to find out."

Héctor narrowed his eyes, not sure he wanted to know whatever they were talking about. But it didn't matter. Whatever it was, it was just his body. What mattered was Miguel, who looked about eighty years old and ready to cross his own marigold bridge.

Enrique, obviously seeing the same thing, said, "Miguel, you need to get back here to this side of the bridge. Do you understand me? I want you to take steps away from it. You aren't carrying this alone."

"I know."

"I don't think you do." He held out his hand. "Come on. You're going to get some sleep. And when you wake up, we're going to do something… _else_. Anything else. Think of something. Do you want to go to a movie? Or go hiking? Go for a drive? Whatever you want that isn't about all of this."

Miguel nodded and reached up to take Enrique's hand. As he stood, he seemed to pass right through Héctor's left arm. He looked over his shoulder, as if he'd heard something, then let Enrique lead him away.

Héctor followed. It wasn't exactly a choice. It was more like being caught in a current. He imagined himself as a leaf being pulled along a stream.

Miguel fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow, and Enrique knelt beside him, carefully leaning the guitar against the wall. He stroked Miguel's hair, then said, "Papá Héctor, if you did hear him, if you can, tell him it's all right. Tell him to be a kid again. He's too young for this, and he won't listen to any of us."

He left the room.

Héctor looked at Miguel, who seemed very small. He looked out the window, and was not surprised to see that there was nothing there.

He wasn't a leaf. He was a marigold petal on a tiny bridge, and it would disappear soon.

He touched Miguel's head.

And was suddenly backstage in the plaza. Miguel was wearing his skeleton makeup, but it floated over translucent flesh. He was sitting on a crate, Chicharron's guitar on his knee.

Héctor sat down across from him. "Hey, chamaco."

He looked up, and a real smile came over his face. "Papá Héctor!"

"You're a stubborn kid, you know."

"You're okay."

"I told you I was." Héctor leaned forward. "You're not, though. Miguel, you're twelve."

"Thirteen now."

"Thirteen, yes, that makes all the difference." Héctor rolled his eyes, making them do a complete backflip in his skull.

Miguel's mouth twitched into something that was either a smile or a grimace of disgust. Either was fine with Héctor. "I miss you," he said.

"Oh, I miss you, too. I think about you every day. We all talk about you. I can't wait to see you on Día de Muertos. But I have other friends, too. I'm writing an opera with Frida Kahlo. About Vikings riding alebrijes."

"What…?" Miguel gave him a confused look.

"It's fun. Mamá Imelda got me started on it. She reminded me that I should be Héctor. She's a smart woman."

"Yes! I love Mamá Imelda. Does she know that? Because I was kind of rude to her."

"She knows it, Miguel. But I'll remind her. But I know what she'd say to you is that you need to be Miguel again, all right?"

"But your body… they found it, and it was a mummy and there was a circus and it was really disrespectful and –"

Héctor had a moment's awful vision of what Miguel was saying. He wanted to scream. But it wasn't important. The important thing was the boy. "It's a body," Héctor said. "I'm glad to have it come home, and I thank you for it. But whatever happened to it, I wasn't there for it. I was here. And I've got a good afterlife now. You need to go and have a good life."

"I'm going to sit with you when they bring you back."

"All right. I'd like that. But when you wake up, you go someplace fun. Play something happy on the guitar. Dance. Laugh. Laugh at me, if you want. Make a mummy joke."

"I can't!" Miguel looked utterly scandalized.

Héctor considered this. "Fair enough. But it's all right. It's all right, Miguel. You're all right."

Miguel looked over Héctor's shoulder, toward the stage. "Do you think we could sing together?"

Héctor smiled. "Teach me your new song. How about that? Teach it to me, and I'll sing it with Mamá Imelda at the Plaza."

And Miguel brightened. The dream became a lesson, and Héctor heard most of the new song. There was a bridge where Miguel was still not sure what he wanted to say, but the idea – Amor verdadero nos une por siempre – was there all along. Héctor listened and learned until the dream fell into wisps, and he knew no more until Coco shook his shoulder and said, "Papá? You sleep like the dead." 


	15. Chapter 15

_June 4, 2018__.__  
__Dear Papá Héctor,__  
__There's an envelope attached to this. It's sealed. You can open it if you want to. Papá says it should be your choice, not mine. It's got the coroner's report and a lot of news articles. A lot of it isn't very good. I'll send newsy things to Mamá Coco this week, but I'm sitting with you right now, and I wanted to talk to you especially.___

_I had a dream last month, and you told me I should be normal again, and I've been trying to be. I went to a track team party (we got into a little trouble for painting the mascot on the side of a building; I got grounded, but I think Papá was happy to do it, if that makes sense), and I went to one of Abel's wrestling matches. Rosa and I have been reading stories about kids whose parents are Greek gods (they're pretty funny), and I've been playing in the Plaza once a week. I played one of my new songs – not the one I taught you in the dream, if you were really there; just one I made for the plaza, about a girl named Julieta and her bicycle – and everyone liked it. If you weren't really in my dream, and I didn't teach you my real song, it will be an offering for you on Día de Muertos, along with your guitar. I'll be singing and playing for you then. I hope everyone likes your new songs, too. Wish I could hear them somehow!___

_The reason I think the dream was real was that Dante came the next morning. You sent him, didn't you? He's been staying really close to me ever since. The house is pretty crowded right now, but Abuelita's being really nice about letting him be there. There's also a cat who keeps coming back, and I'm pretty sure I know who that is, too. I gave her lots of treats, since she kind of saved my life in a big way. Twice.___

_The reason everyone is here is for you. We brought you back here this morning, and all day, we've been sitting vigil with you. My Tía Meche (Papá Isidro's sister; Mamá Coco can tell you a little bit about her, probably) brought a blanket that she's been weaving for you especially. We can't put clothes on you, because… well, we can't. If you read the stuff in the envelope, you'll know why. Anyway, Papá and I put the blanket around you. The mariachis from the plaza were coming and going all day. I asked them to play for your procession tomorrow, but they also all wanted to come here and sit with you and play your songs, since a lot of them learned by playing them in the first place. They're gone now because they're all doing a special show in the plaza with all of your music (except "Remember Me"; I let them play that here, but not there).___

_I was playing for an hour or so after they left, but now my music teacher, Carlos Navarro, is playing for you. He's really good, and he's the one who used his thesis to prove that the songs were yours. There are still some people arguing, especially at the movie studio, but most people are really mad that songs got stolen from you. As soon as we get the songbook, we can take it to court. Carlos came down with Dionisio Calles, the detective who found you. He's a nice person.___

_There are a lot of reporters, but we told them they couldn't come to the funeral, no matter what. I'm not really sure how we're going to keep them away, since Abuelita is too busy to take a chancla to all of them. She did put a scare into one of them, though.___

_There are in-laws and cousins helping out, and the historical society is running the little museum Tía Gloria made. Papá Franco took care of all the special details about taking care of you and getting a place for you, and had them put your name on the stone with Mamá Imelda's. There's a picture of the stone in the envelope, too. I didn't know if you wanted to see your own grave or not. But it's a proper one, finally.___

_I guess it's the best we could hope for. But I sure wish I could have saved you instead of just finding you. Maybe Rosa will invent a time machine someday. That would be nice.___

_This is a pretty long letter for something that just started out as a note to clip on the envelope. And there's still gossipy stuff for Mamá Coco's letter, so I guess you'll know a lot about June.___

_I hope that you're not too sad about the things in the envelope. Papá says the only important part is that you're home with us at last.___

_Love,__  
__Miguel___

_PS: June 5: Something amazing happened, and I'll put in the articles about that, too. But I know how my song ends now. Maybe I always knew._

Enrique looked into the ofrenda room, where Carlos was sitting on a low stool, partly illuminated by weak candlelight. He wasn't playing one of Papá Héctor's songs (Enrique was now heartily sick of "Remember Me" and "Only A Song," and was getting to the end of his patience with "The World Is My Family"), just some bit of classical Spanish guitar that sounded like a gentle sunset and a warm breeze in a rose garden. Miguel was on the bench with a clipboard, writing what looked like a very long letter. Dante was stretched out on the floor beside the bench, and the cat Miguel had dubbed "Pepita" was in the window. On the floor, surrounded by low-burning candles, was the slight, blanket-wrapped form of Papá Héctor.

There had been almost nothing they could do for him, other than wrap him in a blanket. Washing him would have led to fairly disastrous results, and they couldn't move him into a more comfortable position, or even close his mouth. But he and Miguel had taken Tía Meche's blanket and wrapped him in it like an infant might have been wrapped, covering his wasted limbs and making a sort of pillow for his head. Miguel had cried a little bit, but he was bearing up well. He seemed to be glad for something that he could do. He'd spun a little fantasy about Rosa inventing a time machine, so they could go back to that hotel room and make Papá Héctor not drink the poison, but he seemed to understand that it was just a fantasy, and he didn't dwell on it.

The university hadn't even contested the reclamation of the body. In fact, the medical college had made an announcement that it was happy to have been a part of reuniting El Viejo with his family. They had done every conceivable test at least twice in his tenure at the lab, and he was permanently preserved in computerized scans. One of the techs had even done a 3D reconstruction of his face, which she'd printed out and given to Miguel. It was now framed and on the low table behind Papá Héctor's head.

Enrique took a deep breath and went back into the workshop. It had been closed for two days, just as it had been when Mamá Coco passed. It would probably be closed for another two while they straightened everything out and the crowds left again. It was still a gathering place, but at the moment, the family was scattered around the hacienda. Gloria and Mamá were in the kitchen, keeping track of the food they were making for the visitors. Luisa and the baby were with Berto and Carmen. Rosa was hovering near the ofrenda room with her violin, probably daring herself to play for Papá Héctor (and in front of Carlos, who seemed to intimidate her). Abel and Papá had gone into town to watch the mariachis and, though they didn't say it, look intimidating if any of them dared to play "Remember Me."

Enrique didn't think they'd need to worry about it. The musicians had been respectful bordering on worshipful all day, and had kept up an informal guard on the three entrances to the hacienda, keeping the press out. They'd smiled and joked and played songs, but they hadn't budged, and not one reporter had managed to get a toe onto Rivera property. One in particular, who Mamá had made a point of apologizing to over some chancla-related incident, had kept vigil by the front gate all day, except for the few minutes he'd gone inside to play for Papá Héctor.

The workshop should have been deserted, and Enrique had a vague thought of getting started on an order for an English businessman, but instead, he found Dionisio Calles browsing rows of women's shoes.

"Did I miss something in your resume?" he asked.

Calles turned and laughed. "Those are for flamenco, aren't they?" he asked, pointing to the top row of the display shoes. Most of the shop's business was in special orders, but they did supply some over the counter. "That would be new."

"They are, and it is," Enrique said. "I think my brother Berto had been dying to try those for ages, given how fast he started putting them together. He and Miguel have been doing experiments to see what has the best tone on the cobblestones."

Calles smiled. "You have a good business here."

"Yes."

"Maybe I should learn something about business from you. I could use a better one than a couple of plastic chairs in a cheap office."

"It takes time." Enrique shrugged. "I expect the publicity here will help you a little bit. You did good work for us."

"I've been keeping my name out of it."

"That's bad business, my friend. And if you don't put your name into it, I will the next time a reporter corners me."

"All right, I will, but give it a month or so. I finally got my Tío Kevin to let my cousin come see me next month. Better it's not a circus… or, um… sorry."

"No. I'm starting to feel very sympathetic to Papá Héctor's plight myself. I feel like I'm in a fishbowl."

"Can I bring her down here?"

"Who?"

"My cousin. She's Rosa's age. She dances. Irish dancing. She'd love to see how your brother makes flamenco shoes."

"Irish dancers wear flamenco shoes?"

"Not exactly." He frowned. "There are two kinds. Hard and soft. And that's pretty much all I know about Irish dancing shoes."

"Well, tell her to bring both kinds, or Berto's heart will be broken to know there are shoes he's never seen."

"I don't know shoes _or_ music. I feel a little out of place here. But I don't know what to do with her. I want to make sure she still worships me at the end of the day."

"You can come visit us any time, and bring anyone you want. You brought Papá Héctor back to us. You are family, and there's no need to feel out of place." Enrique shrugged, then sat down at his usual spot, pulling out the specifications for his order. "And maybe you should have her teach you about Irish dancing and music. It belongs to you as much as this does." He nodded back toward the ofrenda room, where they could still hear Carlos playing.

Calles shrugged. "I don't know how much any of us know anymore, other than leprechauns and shamrocks and green beer. I don't know if it matters."

"It matters. If I've learned anything from all of this, it's that it matters where you come from."

"I don't know all that much about my father's family, either. I asked him before he died. He only remembered up to his grandfather. Everyone was from the city. His grandfather was a pilot, though. He told me that when I said I wanted to join the Air Force." He ran his hand along the shoes. "The city has a short memory. At least for things as unimportant as the people who once lived there. I went looking when I first took this case. And it's like we just disappear. Nothing in the papers, some faceless graves, a few papers lying around. No one remembers."

"Maybe you should do one of those tests where you spit."

"It won't tell me the kinds of things I wish I knew." Calles sighed and sat down across from Enrique. "I can work on organizing some barriers against the press tomorrow. I'm not sure how yet. The mariachis all want to play along the procession, so there goes the army."

"You don't need to work the funeral," Enrique said. "The family wants you with us."

"I'm just worried that the vultures will come in to feed."

"Me, too. But if they do, they do. We can't control for it." He shook his head. "I told Miguel that it may come to that. He doesn't like it. He doesn't want this to be an even bigger circus. But it seems better than all of us trying to chase them off in the middle of things."

"Papá?"

Enrique looked up. Miguel was out of the ofrenda room for the first time in hours. He was sweating pretty badly (the candles probably had raised the temperature in there by ten degrees, and it wasn't cool out to start with) and had pushed his bangs off his face with a piece of cloth. He'd been wearing his mariachi clothes earlier, but he'd long since shed them, and was now in old cut-off jeans, an undershirt, and a pair of sandals he'd made for practice (and gotten right enough, at least, for them to be wearable; he'd worn them often and with inordinate pride for the last three weeks). Dante, as he had been for the last month, was at his heels. The little cat he called Pepita wound around his ankles, then came into the workshop and settled herself comfortably on Gloria's high stool at the window, looking down imperiously on the room.

"Are you ready to get some sleep, mijo? I can take the vigil for a few hours."

"I'm not tired," Miguel said. He sat down at Berto's station and pulled out a few of the experimental flamenco heels. A large cobblestone was set down on the table, and Miguel started playing a quick little rhythm on it. This seemed to be largely unconscious, something to do with the energy in his hands. "Are you talking about the reporters?"

Enrique nodded. "Señor Calles –"

"Denny," Calles said. "If I'm going to be at a family funeral, you may as well call me what my family calls me."

"_Denny_, then, was going to call out the national guard and maybe lead a charge against them…"

"I was not."

"But I told him what I told you. Whatever they do is on them. We aren't going to take our attention away from where it belongs in order to start a battle with them."

"I don't know," Calles said. "There are only six roads or so into town. A good concentrated force, maybe a tank or two, it shouldn't be too hard."

"We're all out of tanks."

"Well, there goes my plan."

Miguel laughed. "Maybe we could build you one. Out of leather and nails."

"I'll get Rosa on it right away," Calles said. "The girl's smart. And Carlos can turn his guitar strings into garottes!"

"No tanks!" Enrique said, rolling his eyes. "And no guitar garottes, either."

Calles gave a dramatic sigh. "You spoil the best fun."

This got a bigger laugh from Miguel, who liked the occasional high-octane action movie.

"You're all right then, chamaco?" Calles asked.

Miguel thought about it, then nodded. "Yeah. I'm okay. My Papá Héctor is home. I'm okay."

"Good."

The three of them settled into a lazy talk that wasn't about the body, or about the funeral, or the press. Carlos joined them after a while, when Rosa found the nerve to go in and play for her Papá Héctor.

Miguel told them about some of the songs he'd been writing. "They're just plaza songs," he explained. "My good stuff is for the family."

"It doesn't have to be," Enrique said. "You can write good songs for your people, too, you know."

"Your father is free with business advice tonight," Calles said. "And it's not bad advice."

"It's _good_ advice," Carlos amplified. "Don't give the public junk. They have enough junk being pushed at them."

"But what if I say something personal?"

"Then people will love it. And it doesn't have to be so clear that they know what you're talking about. For instance, I wrote a song for my wife. I mean every word of it. But part of a songwriter's job is being able to say things that everyone means, but can't say. Now, my song is part of other people's lives, helping men say things that they kept stumbling over before."

"And your wife doesn't mind?" Enrique asked, genuinely curious about this, as he couldn't imagine Luisa being thrilled to hear someone else shouting his private affections across the plaza.

"She loves it. Sometimes, if she hears someone singing it, she will say, 'That's _my_ song!' and give me a kiss for it."

"I didn't even know you had a wife," Miguel said. "You never said. How come she didn't come with you?"

"She's a lawyer. Her clients wouldn't be happy if she skipped their court dates." Carlos looked up at the stars. "The point is, being a songwriter, your heart is going to be on your sleeve for everyone to see, even when you think you're writing doggerel. Or when you _are_ writing doggerel about Julieta and her bicicleta… you're better than that tripe, Miguel. Don't give anyone a half-effort. And don't turn in doggerel like that to me."

"I like the bicicleta song," Calles said.

"Back to the point, even in that unworthy garbage, I could hear your voice. I can hear it in the words – it's the way you tease your cousin Rosa. And most of all I hear it in the way you make the guitar laugh when you laugh, the way you make it cry when you cry. Music for the public isn't meant to be something to hide behind. Your Papá Héctor's public songs were good songs, too. They were good because they were real and they were specific, and by being specific, they said things that no one else had ever said, and everyone wanted to be able to say. Do you understand?"

"Do you think my good song should be for everyone?"

"Yes, I do, when you finish that crescendo. I think it's a true song. And Miguel… I'll say something to you about ethics in music, too. If you start looking down your nose at the audience, if you don't love them and you give them only the scraps of your genius, then you'll be as much of a fraud as de la Cruz. All of the reporters ask me about how I knew, and I make up technical sounding nonsense, but the truth is, you could tell listening to him that he loved himself, and thought of his audience as expendable."

Enrique was about to shut this down, to yell that Carlos had no right to lecture his son on ethics and twist the thumbscrews and insist on anything… but Miguel didn't look insulted. He looked thoughtful.

"How can I love people I don't know?" he asked.

"Because to be an artist, you need to know _people_. You need to understand this insane species that you're part of. And understanding, you love."

"Really?" Calles asked. "You think understanding people makes you love them?"

"Well, maybe not broke detectives. They're a different story." Carlos rolled his eyes hugely. "Seriously, Miguel. Music, at its heart, is love. Art is love. Don't be a cheap flirt."

Enrique changed the subject before the metaphors got any more explicit, and they spent the next half hour talking about the press and the funeral, and what steps were coming up next in the prosecution of de la Cruz. Rosa came in after a while, and Miguel realized that no one was playing for Papá Héctor, so he went back to begin his concert. Carlos took a nap for an hour and asked Enrique to wake him up so he could spell Miguel. ("I promise, I'll make him sleep for at least three hours afterward.")

In the end, once Miguel was coaxed to sleep on the bench, no one woke him up. Luisa came in when Carlos was ready to drop, and she and Enrique sang together. Not with any polish at all, but it felt nice. Papá Isidro picked up with the ocarina at around two, and Enrique and Luisa went to bed. They heard Abel start to play his accordion (badly) before they fell asleep. Papá and Berto weren't musically inclined themselves, but Gloria said they came in with her when Papá Isidro was finished, and sat with her while she hummed. Just before dawn, Enrique pulled himself out of bed, and walked silently with Mamá, who bent and kissed her grandfather's head, then, in a low and lovely alto voice, sang a few verses of La Llorona to him.

That was what woke Miguel, and he went to get dressed, then picked up his guitar and played until it was time for the procession to the church, where a funeral mass would finally be said for Papá Héctor. He strapped the guitar across his back while he carried the front of the coffin, balancing it with Papá. Enrique and Berto carried the back of the coffin. They had agreed to ask Calles and Carlos to carry the center. The women put on black rebozos over their beribboned hair. Luisa carried Socorro along beside Miguel, holding her up so she could see her ancestor pass, and touch the century between them.

In the church, the local mariachis lined the walls for the short mass, and the priest gave Papá Héctor his blessings. Mamá spoke briefly, asking both his forgiveness, and the forgiveness of the town for her haughtiness.

Enrique looked over his shoulder, expecting to see reporters beating on the church doors, but none appeared.

When the mass was over, they carried the casket out, and the mariachis began to play as Papá Héctor took the last steps of his long, hard journey on earth.

The town seemed strangely empty, and no one was coming up to the casket, or watching the procession. It seemed strange to Enrique, but he didn't know what to make of it. Maybe the deceased had been gone for so long that only the family and the musicians cared.

The reporters were still not present.

Before they lowered the casket into the ground beside Mamá Imelda, Miguel opened it one final time and looked into Papá Héctor's poor, wasted face.

"Te quiero, Papá," he said. "I'll see you. In a long time, but I will, because I'll never let anyone forget you. And we'll sing together again."

He closed the coffin and nodded.

The mariachis played as the coffin sank into the ground, the trumpets calling out into the gray day, celebrating the forgotten man, now remembered.

Still no reporters.

Enrique looked curiously at Calles, who also seemed baffled. Carlos didn't say anything.

The family made its way home through those curiously empty streets. The baker's shop was closed, and the plaza was deserted.

Miguel retreated to his cave behind the sign, and emerged onto the roof a moment later.

Then suddenly, he shouted, "Papá! Papá, look!"

Enrique had never liked climbing around on these tiles, never felt comfortable with it, but there was no other way to see whatever Miguel was pointing out.

He pulled over a ladder and climbed up. When he got to Miguel he started to ask what he was looking for, but then he saw it.

There were six roads into Santa Cecilia, and he could see all of them from the rooftop.

At the edges of town, news vans had gathered. The sunlight flashed off of lenses.

But every road into town was blocked off. The people were gathered there, probably fifty on each route, maybe more. They sat quietly, but not silently. Enrique could hear them, distant but clear, singing "Remember Me." All six groups were at different spots in the song, but he would know it anywhere at this point.

"Canten a coro," Miguel whispered, then put his arm around Enrique's waist. They listened to the distant song until the town's whistle went off, and all six groups got up in unison and, singing, came back to town, leaving the reporters to enter as they pleased now that there was nothing left for them to intrude on.

Miguel led Enrique back through the window into the attic, then down through the old house.

Carlos was waiting for them there. "I told them what you were worried about," he said. "They came up with the solution on their own." He looked at Miguel. "_These_ are your people, Miguel. Don't give them leftovers."

Miguel nodded. "I understand."


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**

_Si tiro mis rosas en el mar__  
__Y que parezcan olvidados__  
__¿No volverán a mí, querida?__  
__No importa cómo he pecado?___

_If I throw my roses in the sea__  
__And scatter petals to the wind__  
__Will they not come back to me__  
__No matter how I've sinned?__  
_

Héctor knew as soon as he walked into the workshop that the family intended to hide it from him.

It wasn't anything particular that they did. Oscar and Felipe were talking about a bone polishing machine, and Julio was easing Coco into the idea that she could take her body apart if she really needed to (she was still having a little difficulty not thinking of herself as fragile, which most people did). Victoria was doing detail work on a nice sandal. Rosita was taking an order from a timid looking man in glasses, and Imelda herself was attaching an upper to a sole… all perfectly normal.

Too normal.

Apparently, they forgot that Héctor talked to other people.

He'd spent the day in the arts district, as usual. The play was coming together well, and he and Frida had started a few tentative auditions last week. This morning, he had come into her studio to find her engrossed in _Más Alla_, whose front cover had a picture of… Héctor. It wasn't a photograph taken here in the city. It was a hand-drawn version of him as a living man.

"Ah," she said when she heard him come in. "There he is now. Aren't you quite the story today? We best cancel auditions. There'll be curiosity seekers."

Héctor sighed. "What is it now? Did Ernesto announce that I took poison deliberately to avoid going home to Imelda or something?"

"No. But I expect that next week. Either that, or it was because of your unrequited love for him." She rolled her eyes. "Honestly, I don't know why they still interview him. Last week's story was pathetic."

"He's still famous." Héctor nodded at the paper. "And why am _I_ famous today?"

"New arrival from the land of the living. Another reporter. He'd gone up north to do a story on those odiados who run drugs, and they killed him."

"And that ended up with me on the front page?"

"Last week, he was on lighter fare. The funeral of an ancient mariachi singer whose body just turned up."

"Ah."

"He recognized you when he saw a bit about the play. So he decided to write an exclusive article all about it." She made a harsh "tssk" sound, and shook her head. "I read it, though personally I found the story of his own murder more riveting." She'd tossed the paper over.

That had been five hours ago. Héctor hadn't gotten any real work done. He'd read the article several times, trying to wrap his head around the idea of having been a circus freak for the last fifty years. He'd suspected _something_, given Miguel's state in his dream, but the idea that he had been displayed like a stuffed doll, that his body had been cut open and…

_That is not the story,_ he told himself firmly. _The story is that Santa Cecilia blocked them from having one last bit of fun with you. The story is that your family brought you home. The story is not that 'leaked documents suggest that the body was mishandled before mummification,' or that 'there was evidence of long term poisoning in the tissues.'_

The story wasn't that people had paid dimes to see him in Texas, or that they'd had their pictures taken with his corpse in Sonora. The story wasn't that his body had been a lab toy for medical students in Juarez, named "The Old Man" and occasionally dressed in novelty hats for holidays. It wasn't even that there was now rampant speculation about Ernesto's motives (after all, who would kill for songs he could have bought?), or that a search had supposedly begun for other victims (Héctor was convinced he wouldn't find any, but then, his judgments of Ernesto had possibly not been as clear-headed as other people's). It wasn't that a chorizo had been shoved violently into his throat, or what the reporter had decided the symbolism of that act was.

_The story is that the musicians of Santa Cecilia played your songs in tribute. The story is that the reporters' way into town was blocked, and that your family kept vigil with you, and Miguel was seen playing your guitar all night. The rest was just your body, and you weren't with it by the time it happened, so let it go._

By the time he decided to stop pretending he was thinking about how to stage a Viking drinking song, he had mostly managed to absorb it, if not really accept it. There was a surreal sense to the day already, and seeing the family going about its usual workshop routines as if they didn't know what had happened fit right in.

"So," he said, sitting down on his little bench and picking up his guitar to play for them, just like he would on any other day, "any news?"

Imelda winced. "Ah…"

"I read it already," he said.

A visible sigh of resignation went through the room, and Coco came over to him. "I'm sorry, Papá. It was in the papers when it happened! We should have seen it."

"Yes, I remember how avidly your mother read news about circus sideshows."

"We _might_ have seen it," Felipe said. "That's all Oscar and I have been talking about all day. We really might have, but…"

"But why would you ever make the connection?" Héctor said. "You thought I was trying to make a fortune in New York. Turns out I was a big show business success after all."

Imelda slammed her hammer down on the sole of the shoe she was working on. "Can we take de la Cruz's bones apart, break them, and bury the pieces in different places? In locked boxes? Would that work?"

"Yes, but you don't want to know what they'd do to _you_ if you tried it."

"Do you think they'll find other bodies?" Victoria asked.

"I'm pretty sure I was special," Héctor said.

"I think it depends on who got in his way and how," Imelda said. "We know he threw Miguel off high places twice. And I seem to remember hearing that his father died in an 'accident,' which I distinctly heard him threaten."

"You think he cheated on me with other victims?" Héctor asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Don't joke. Not about this."

He sighed. "What else am I supposed to do about this?"

No one answered. They went back to work.

"When are you going to see him?" Coco asked quietly, as soon as no one was looking.

"What? I'm not going to see him again. That was a waste of time."

"I want to go with you, when you do."

"No."

"Papá…"

"No, Coco. If I go, I'll go alone. And I'm not going."

He meant it. At least at the moment he said it.

Over the next week, he came to grips with a lot of it. The mummy, which he had a hard time identifying with the body he'd spent his mortal life thinking of as himself, was a freak of nature, an accident. A lucky one, in some ways, since in some magical way that he didn't entirely understand, they'd been able to prove his identity. They'd even found out things he _didn't_ know, like where he'd come from, at least in a general sense. The dead reporter had intimated that people were stepping forward for testing to find out even more. It occurred to him that his parents might even be here somewhere, if the living found out who they were. He wasn't sure he wanted to meet them.

The circus did what show business always did. It was embarrassing and humiliating, but if he was honest with himself, he might have paid a peso to see a mummy himself at one point in his life, without thinking twice about what it meant to the human being the mummy had once been. Show people were good at knowing what people would pay to see. Given some of what he'd seen them sell, a dead body posed as a bandido was probably not so bad. It wasn't _good_, and the idea that his body had been stabbed and he was treated as a criminal was abhorrent, but he didn't think it had been done maliciously on the part of the circus. He was an object by then.

It was what Ernesto had done right after his death that weighed on him more heavily. And right before it. That, more than anything else.

Imelda had suspected sequential poisoning, but it was something else entirely to know that it had been proven, that Ernesto had sat in hotel rooms with him, that they'd broken bread together and laughed together and talked about music, and during all of it, there had been grains of rat poison percolating through Héctor's blood, and Ernesto had known about it. He'd looked him in the eye and laughed while he was committing murder.

That was what finally drew him back to the tower.

Only it wasn't a tower anymore.

Frida had closed the studio curtains against the view that had once shown Ernesto's home from the arts district, and Héctor had always approached from the other side. He played in the Plaza de la Música, but the stage faced away from the tower, and he'd avoided looking.

He didn't know how long it had been shrinking, or if it had happened all at once or so gradually that no one really noticed, but now, Ernesto's grand mansion atop an inaccessible tower was merely a large stone house at the top of a hill. The funicular that once made loops around it as it went up was gone; the only guard was an adobe wall with an iron gate, and the guard at the gate was looking inward instead of outward. When Héctor asked to be allowed in, again, he was granted access with near reverence.

The walls had been covered with vicious graffiti, calling Ernesto any number of vile names. Héctor was quite sure that, if skeletons had bodily waste, it would have been in evidence. The great staircase and many balconies, already falling into disrepair on his last visit, were gone, replaced by a chipped and uneven path through a sculpture garden. Some of his fine art was still there, but most of what was there was junk.

Héctor went to the door. The second guard let him in and pointed him down the hall. The house was still vast by Héctor's standards, but it was noticeably smaller and sparser.

The ofrenda room was in an equivalent place from the entrance, so it wasn't hard to find. It was still crammed to the ceiling with offerings, but the ceiling was lower. Ernesto's little alebrijes tumbled out of the mess and started nipping at Héctor's ankles. He wished that Dante and Pepita had come back. It would be good to have something more impressive. (That Dante was more impressive than these three was saying something, but it was true. And Dante, at least, had proven himself useful.)

Ernesto was sitting in a ragged chair in front of an unlit fireplace. He waved his hand at the door. "Come in, then," he said. "And you three, out!" He threw a slipper at the alebrijes, and they ran for the cover of a tottering pile of boxes.

Héctor took a few tentative steps in. Ernesto indicated a second chair facing the fireplace. They wouldn't be looking directly at each other, but that suited Héctor perfectly well.

"Is this what you wanted?" Ernesto asked.

"No. I would prefer you to be having a wonderful afterlife after not having poisoned me. I would have liked it better if you'd just bought my songs. We could have been singing together in the plaza again."

"I hear you sometimes, when it's quiet. You and… you and your wife." He shook his head. Héctor watched him sideways. "I always told you, Héctor, she wasn't serious about the business. A pretty voice. A dime a dozen. But she was never willing to make the sacrifices one needs to make to succeed in our business."

"Neither was I, apparently."

"She had your head completely twisted around. I always hoped you would come to my way of thinking."

Héctor sighed. "When did you start poisoning me, Ernesto?"

He gave Héctor a scathing look. "You've been following your press clippings, I see. Quite the star, aren't you? Poor, hard-done by Héctor. You wouldn't know talking to these people that a year ago, they all thought you were an unreliable con man who latched onto more stable people for anything you had."

"Ernesto, if you don't tell me, I'll leave. And no one else has been to see you, have they? You don't matter to anyone but the man you murdered."

"Oh, which man? Now, they're saying I may have killed dozens, and least according to _Más Alla's_ new pet reporter."

"Did you?"

"Certainly. And I ravished their bodies after they were dead. And then I ate them."

Héctor knew he was being sarcastic, but was unsure if he was hiding anything under the sarcasm. "Did you kill your father?"

"Between us? Yes, I killed the bastard. I cracked the concrete on the rail on my balcony and got him to lean against it eight stories up. Are you happy?"

"No. Why hasn't he ever called you on… never mind. You were an only child, and you never bothered remembering him afterward. Did he even last a day in Olvidados?"

"No idea. Both of my parents were gone when I got here, as far as I know."

His indifference to this fact made Héctor sad. He'd actually liked Ernesto's parents. His mother was a bit silly, but she always had sweets, and she'd loved his music. His father had occasionally had the nerve to call Ernesto out on his more egregious behaviors, which Héctor had never quite found the strength to do. He sighed. "So, when did you start poisoning me? Why? Was it just for fun? Did you get…?"

"Did I ravish _your_ dead body after you died?" He laughed. "I've read those articles, too. Modern people making modern assumptions."

"It wasn't exactly unknown in 1921, Nesto. I seem to recall some running commentary on the subject from you." Héctor shook his head. "But you and I shared quite a few cheap hotel rooms, in varying states of sobriety, and you outweighed me by fifty pounds. If you were going to ravish me, you'd have done it when you could see that it bothered me. I want to know why you actually killed me."

"Because I couldn't live without you. Because you irritated me. Because I enjoyed killing. Because –"

"Nesto, now. The truth. It's just you and me. No one else is listening."

Ernesto turned his chair around so that he was facing Héctor more directly. "You were in my way," he said. "I had a career to get started."

"So why not just split up the act? And when did you decide to poison me? How did you do it?"

"You really want to know? You want the details?"

"I'm not sure I want them, but I need them."

"All right then. I'll tell you."

Héctor sat stiffly, his fingerbones digging into the arms of the chair, and Ernesto began to talk. He caressed his words, like he relished the chance to finally share everything.

"It was August," he said. "It was August, and it was hot, and you really had eaten a bad chorizo…"

And he spun the story. Some of it, Héctor remembered, though it all seemed foreign through Ernesto's eyes. If he closed his eyes, he could see the hotel room, the cheap rug, the broken-down furniture. It never mattered where they slept. Ernesto spent most of his time at the bars or clubs, working contacts and getting show dates or auditions. They'd come back to Mexico City for the second time in the tour, and it was already becoming clear to Héctor that all of the scattered performances were circling in on these "big" deals in the big city, and he already didn't like where it was going. It was starting to eat at him even before he got sick. He tried to remember. There had been so much bad street food back then, it was a wonder he hadn't Iactually/i died from it, and Nesto as well.

But Nesto had lined up an audition one morning, and Héctor had spent most of the night before in the grimy alley behind the hotel, throwing up into a pile of garbage. By the time morning had come around, he'd been cold and clammy and wished he was dead (or thought he did), but Nesto hadn't cared. Even now, the only thing he remembered was the inconvenience, the annoyance he'd felt.

_"You can't come to the audition?"___

_"Not unless you want me throwing up on the producers." Héctor shook his head. "And why are you going to this one? It's a touring company. They'd want us to be away for years."___

_"The woman who owns it owns a movie studio."___

_"Movies again… it's a fad."___

_Ernesto was frustrated with this, as he always was. Héctor's vision was limited. He saw a wedding or a quinceañera as a great opportunity, instead of a second-rate gig. Oh, marvelous, play while Papá leads baby girl around in her new heeled shoes. Wonderful, play while drunken relatives reel around a dance floor. Ernesto saw bigger things. He saw shows, shared with the whole country. He saw his face projected forty feet high. He would be immortal.___

_But Héctor thought small. Maybe it was time to cut him loose. He was a liability. Let him go home to the shrew and the brat, if that's as much as he was capable of considering.___

_But Ernesto didn't really like touring alone, and the audiences loved Héctor's songs, and Héctor had been very clear about who owned those songs. And he wouldn't make even the most obvious concessions to reality.___

_Take the lullaby he wrote for the brat. Give it a good backing, a strong orchestra, and people around the world would dance to it. Other, lesser singers would sing it at weddings and quinceañeras. Maybe funerals, with the right arrangement. Ernesto had even tried one of his own arrangements on it, improving it exponentially, but Héctor had threatened to leave entirely if he ever did it again.___

_"It's Coco's! It's not yours and it's not even mine! You can't have it!"___

_Because a four-year-old child should determine the course of her father's career.___

_He shook it off. "Look, the audition is mostly to meet people." This was a lie, of course, but if Héctor saw the money involved, he'd change his mind. It would buy a lot of dresses and ribbons and dolls and whatever else spoiled girls liked. He'd even have enough money left over to buy the shrew an extra set of trousers and maybe a whip to keep him in line. "We meet them, they remember us, and maybe, when they start making those sound movies they're talking about, they bring us in to sing. Or maybe they'd hire you to write the things people play on the organ in the background."___

_"I don't even know how to write for the organ."___

_"They'd fill in the arrangement. They actually hire arrangers for that sort of thing." Ernesto wasn't sure about this, but it didn't matter. "Come on, Héctor. Pull yourself together."___

_"If you want them to remember us for me getting sick all over them…"___

_"Oh, never mind. I'll take the meeting myself."___

_"I owe you one, amigo."___

_"I'll keep it in mind."___

_And so Ernesto left Héctor at the hotel, muttering to himself as he went to the audition. He performed well. He knew that. But the woman who owned the company, a haughty old bitch, was only mildly impressed.___

_"I'm not seeing anything new," she said.___

_"What would you like to see?" he asked, leaning over the guitar and giving her a wink.___

_It didn't work then. (It would later. Women always eventually bent for him, which was why he sought out companies owned by women.) She just glared at him and said, "I want to see something new."___

_Ernesto sighed. "Have you heard 'Poco Loco'?"___

_"Many times. I've seen your show. Your collection is good, but it's getting stale. You need to take time to write more songs. You've been on the road too long."___

_"We have more songs. They're just… not entirely complete yet."___

_"Well, give me the incomplete version."___

_Ernesto didn't think about it. He just played the opening of his re-arranged version of "Remember Me."___

_The woman, whose name he would not remember one year later, let alone a century later, sat forward eagerly. "Now, that has possibilities. What else do you have?"___

_Ernesto spent the afternoon fiddling his way through what half-finished songs he could remember from Héctor's late night work sessions (he always holed himself away in the hotel rooms while Ernesto worked contacts, and was usually still up and playing when Ernesto got back). Nothing got quite the interest of "Remember Me," but the woman liked all of them.___

_"Now, if I recall, you have a performing partner," she said.___

_"He's ill. Bad chorizo."___

_"A shame. Bring him next time, with a full version of those last five songs. Then we can talk."___

_Her secretary set up an appointment three days later.___

_Héctor, who was starting to feel better, didn't want to go. "I've been thinking about it. It's not right to audition for a company we can't join."___

_"We could, though. It's good money."___

_"I'm not staying on the road for years, Nesto. We've been away too long already. I'll tell her that you're a solo act."___

_"She wants some of the new songs."___

_Héctor frowned. "New songs?"___

_"Well, I sang… some of the ones you've been working on. The World Is My Family. Roses and the Sea. Candela, Candela. I just sang parts of them."___

_"Those aren't done, Ernesto."___

_"And Remember Me."___

_Héctor froze. "I told you no," he said. "I've told you a dozen times."___

_"Don't be stupid! That song is a money song."___

_"No. That makes thirteen. Are you going to go for twenty times? Fifty? It's not changing."___

_And Ernesto knew. He knew there was no deal without "Remember Me" at the very least. That meant that Héctor couldn't go to the next meeting. He'd have to be sick again.___

_So he was.___

_The rat poison was easy enough to come by; the damned city was crawling with vermin. A few grains, covered up by the spiciest sauce Ernesto could find, and Héctor decided it was the sauce that made him sick. An ulcer, maybe, from the stress of being away from home.___

_That company deal fell through, but the woman had introduced Ernesto to a young man named Raul… something… and she had told him about the marvelous songs. Raul wanted to make records, like those fools who'd come through Santa Cecilia so long ago. But he wasn't going to waste his time on gimmicks like finding the best singer in the town named for the patron saint of music – no, he was going to find someone who would be a star.___

_Héctor found himself ill for that meeting as well.___

_Raul's fantasy wasn't funded very well, and he wasn't actually ready to start anything, but as it turned out he knew a man who was producing a play. Ernesto had never tried acting before, but there was singing in the play, so they wanted someone who knew music, and could maybe even contribute a new song. The songs had somehow become Ernesto's; his partner wasn't mentioned anymore. This show would benefit from a great ballad like "Remember Me." Héctor's stomach acted up again the day before.___

_Finally, the theater producer had introduced Ernesto to a woman named Delfina, who wanted to put him up for a part in a silent film. Since it wouldn't involve the songs, and she didn't know about them, Ernesto arranged for Héctor to have an audition as well. Maybe, if he just saw how accommodating these people were…___

_But Delfina took an immediate shine to Héctor, as did a young actress named Lupe, though actresses, Ernesto already knew, hardly counted in the scheme of things. The day after the audition, Delfina had called at the hotel and made a perfectly clear offer to Héctor, who had, out of sheer obstinance, pretended not to understand.___

_"Cut him loose," Delfina had ordered._

"But I would never cut you loose, of course," Ernesto finished. "We were a team."

"Is _that_ what that crazy woman was talking about?" Héctor asked. "She wanted me to… I… I thought it was a business deal."

"It _was_ a business deal, you soft-headed idiot." Ernesto sighed. "Really, Héctor. You're very naïve."

"So that's why you started poisoning me. So I stayed out of your meetings."

"And after you were rude to Delfina, she spread it around that I'd brought in someone uncooperative. So when I met with Bruno Abelard, the one who finally signed me, he said he only wanted me and the songs. I did want you to stay on as my songwriter…"

"Except that you'd mostly told all of these people that they were your songs."

"I was going to pay you for them."

"And for pretending they weren't mine? And keeping up the charade with more of them?"

"Well, yes." Ernesto shrugged. "I should have known you weren't serious about just wanting to support your family. If you were, you'd have taken the money and gone home. No, you had to have everything. Your name, the money, and… and deciding which songs anyone had a right to hear. It was ridiculous. But you kept writing. I knew you'd been writing all those days you were cooped up. I kept trying to look at your songbook, but you kept shutting it away early. And then you decided to pack up for Santa Cecilia."

"And you killed me."

Another shrug. "The last few times you were sick, I'd hit on the tequila. You'd expect that to maybe make you feel a little ill. So I spiked one bottle and mixed most of the drinks with a clean one. But that last night? It was all the spiked stuff. You really can't take your liquor." He grinned.

Héctor didn't return it. "All the remedies you brought. All the sitting up while I threw up in the chamberpot, and taking it out to get rid of. All the joking around about my stomach and my nerves. You'd been poisoning me for months." Ernesto didn't answer; he didn't have to. He'd already confessed. "And it was for money."

"And fame," Ernesto said. "Don't forget fame. But now, you have both, too."

Héctor couldn't think of what to say. He just sat quietly in the chair, looking sideways at his murderer, thinking about fame and money.

Ernesto began to laugh.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**

_July 13, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
I don't know if you and Papá Héctor have read the articles with my last letter or not. If not, we did have a funeral for Papá Héctor, and he is back with you and Mamá Imelda finally. I don't know if that makes a difference where you are or not, but it makes a difference to us. The whole town helped, and all of the mariachis played. After, the family met in the workshop, and we talked about being sorry that we hurt each other sometimes. Our friend Calles was there with us. His family had a murder, too (his grandfather), and he says that it's normal for everyone to be turned upside down after it. He says that a little thing like a music ban is pretty good, in terms of craziness he's seen. He has one aunt he's never met because she's mad at his mother for marrying a Mexican because the murderer spoke Spanish. (Calles says the murderer was Salvadoran, too, which makes it even stupider.) Puts things in perspective a little, anyway._

_Calles brought his cousin down here last weekend. Her name is Bridget Shaughnessy, and she's fourteen and very pretty. She has red hair and blue eyes and freckles. I don't know if you can get into people's dreams too, but if you can, don't tell anyone: I got my first kiss from her. And my second and third. I really wanted to tell you. I thought it would make you smile. Papá isn't very happy that I was flirting. Mamá thinks it's funny._

_But she lives twenty-seven-hundred and forty-three miles away, almost in Canada, so that's probably the only time I'll ever see her. Rosa says I have to throw myself in the sea from heartbreak now, but I think I'll hold off on that for a while, and just be friends with her online or something instead. Aside from learning about kissing, I also got to listen to Irish music, and we tried to come up with a way to mix Irish dancing and Mexican music. It didn't work very well, but it was fun._

_Abel finished up at school this year. He was going to get an apartment across town with some friends, but then he decided he wants to help make the addition at the hacienda. We're making a kind of hallway between the old house and the new one, with a sewing room and maybe a new play space for Coco and the twins. Socorro is definitely turning into Coco now; she's not even a year old and she's already a real person! She's right here with me, as usual. I made her a rattle, and she's got a pretty good little rhythm going. Anyway, Abel is really pretty good at building things, and he's helping the construction people and he's watching the architect. He might want to be an architect. He did drawings of the new part of the house, and they're pretty neat. The twins are waving out of the window, and Coco is dancing out front._

_Tío Berto is starting to worry about the shoe business, but he doesn't have to (and neither does Mamá Imelda). Rosa really likes making shoes, and maybe the twins and Coco will, too. And Papá and Tío Berto and Tía Gloria are all still young. Maybe Tía Gloria will still get married and have babies, and they'll be great shoemakers._

_I feel a little bit guilty about the shoe business. I started all of this. If it goes bad, will it be my fault? But it won't go bad. It can't._

_Maybe I should marry a girl who likes making shoes. That would fix it._

_I finished my good song, and Carlos says it's really nice. He says he wants more verses, but only because he likes it so much that he wants to hear it for longer. I'm going to write more for the plaza, but I'm going to top thinking about them as the opposite of my good songs. I'm going to write good songs for everyone. If I write garbage, it'll go to the dump where it belongs. Or get recycled. Carlos says that bad stuff can be recycled into good stuff, if you understand why it was bad._

_I hope everything is wonderful where you are. I really want to know what's going on, and how everyone is! It's weird that I can tell you things just by putting a pen on paper—at least I hope I can, and these letters are getting to you—but you can't tell me things, except maybe in a dream, and I can't even be sure that's real. Or by sewing things to the jacket, but there's no more jacket. I know you're right beside us, but you sometimes feel much further away than twenty-seven-hundred and forty-three miles, and I can't even be friends with you online. I guess it would be kind of funny if I could. Maybe there's a song in that. It would be a weird one… Skeleton Snapchat! Huesogram! Skullbook!_

_Is it okay to make those jokes? I hope so, because when I joke with you I feel like I'm almost talking to you there instead of just imagining it. It stings a little, because I don't like to think of you being bones, but I know that's how it is, and I want to think of you having fun as you are._

_Love,  
Miguel_

The night was hot, as if the stars were giving off as much heat as the sun. Enrique had thrown the windows open two hours ago in the hope of a breeze, but there was nothing. He was starting to come around to Berto's notion of installing air conditioning, no matter how often he'd opined that the family had lived here for a century without it.

But it would be an energy drain, and the more you got used to that sort of thing, the less you could handle it when it wasn't there.

Luisa had finally fallen asleep on top of the covers, wearing as little as she dared with the door and window both open. The heat was too oppressive to think of being close to her, though.

Coco wasn't sleeping. She was lying in her crib, wearing only a diaper and waving her hands and feet around, watching them with a goggling expression in her eyes, like she was surprised to see them doing what she wanted them to do.

Enrique watched her for a while, just loving her in a kind of familiar, aching way. The time was short with her here. Another few months and she'd move into the frilly little room that Luisa had been making for her in the old mudroom. Then she'd be in a child's bed instead of a crib, and then there would be pictures of popular bands on the wall, and then she would sincerely believe that no one knew she'd been kissing a foreign boy up on the roof. And then she would be married, and would she even live at home, or would she end up in some snowy faraway town where—

"You are brooding, mi amor," Luisa said sleepily, rolling over. "I see it on your face."

"Just thinking about how fast the time goes. I'll get old, you know."

"Me, too."

"I'll be old first."

"Well, I'll try to catch up."

He smiled and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I'm being foolish."

"Yes."

"It just feels like everything is moving so fast. Ten minutes ago _I_ was thirteen. Now my son is turning into a man so fast I can actually see it happening. Life is so short."

"It's not, though. Haven't you been listening? It goes on for as long as we're needed."

"Remembered."

"Is there a difference?"

"I don't know."

She sat up and reached for the light switch, then changed her mind. The added heat from the lightbulb would be too much. And the moonlight was beautiful on her skin. "Growing up is inevitable," she said. "I've decided to look forward to the man Miguel will become. I think he'll be like you, and I like you quite a lot, so I think I'll have a grown-up son to be proud of."

In the crib, Coco cooed.

"And this one," Luisa went on, "is starting to become herself. She likes quiet times, and she thinks her big brother is a minor deity of some kind, and she is already Papá's little girl, in case you haven't noticed that yet."

"Oh, she—"

"—loves Mamá, I know, but I get to see the way she smiles when you come into the room. You only see her smiling already."

Enrique didn't bother arguing. "I think she'll be a dancer," he said. "I see her tapping her feet on the crib when Miguel is playing."

"And she'll never know a day when she can't dance to her heart's content."

"That's a good thing."

Luisa looked over at the crib with a soft smile on her face. "I want another. And another after that."

"Luisa—"

"I'm still young, and the problems I've had, they're… I know we can have more children. The doctor even said she wouldn't rule it out and it was safe to try. I just need to be careful."

"Let's get this one into her own room first, all right?"

"All right." She smiled. "Can I get a kiss?"

Enrique smiled. "I don't know. Do you think we could keep it a secret?"

"Oh, I'm sure no one will ever suspect."

He leaned over and kissed her quickly, a kind of glancing blow to the lips, then looked shiftily over his shoulder. "There. My parents will never guess. After all, they know nothing about this sort of thing."

She laughed. "Now, give me a real one, you naughty thing."

He did, but when he sat down, it was at some distance. It was too hot to have skin on skin at the moment, and that was a depressing thought.

She leaned forward. "I could get ice cubes."

Enrique considered this for a long time, looked at the baby, and said, "Do you think she could sleep in her new room yet?"

Luisa nodded. "See? Time moving ahead is a good thing." She got up and gathered Coco to move her next door, most likely only for an hour or so, and, while Enrique pulled the curtains and closed the window, went to the kitchen for an ice cube tray.

They cooled each other down. In some ways.

Luisa was lying in bed forty minutes later with the last ice water sitting prettily in the hollow of her throat when Coco started fussing. Enrique pulled on his shorts to go take care of her.

Miguel was already in there. He'd picked Coco up and was walking with her, singing her a lullaby he'd been writing.

He looked up, but then quickly looked away. "I, um… I couldn't sleep and I was just out in the courtyard and I saw Mamá put Coco in here, and then she was fussing, and I, um… I thought maybe you didn't… hear…" He glanced up again, then looked quickly away again.

Enrique looked at the door between this room and his own and realized that it was not a particularly heavy one. Still, it could hardly have been the first time Miguel had overheard anything.

Just the first time since he'd tried kissing a girl himself.

Enrique sat down on the little pink bench, which Rosa had adorned with red ribbons and stuffed bunnies. "You came from somewhere, Miguel."

"Yeah… I mean… I know… I… I didn't mean to hear, I was just up with Coco."

"It's okay."

Coco had stopped fussing, and Miguel put her down in her crib. He turned around, biting his lip, then said, very quickly. "Is it hard to learn?"

"Is… what…?"

Miguel made a helpless kind of gesture. "It's… well… I kissed Bridget Shaughnessy."

"I know."

"You do?"

"Yes, Miguel."

He was blushing deeply enough to be seen in the moonlight now and he started pacing. "That was pretty easy, but I was reading this book that Rosa has, and everything else sounds really complicated. There was a contract. And… things."

Enrique shook his head. "What book were you reading?"

"It has a tie on it. Rosa's not supposed to have it, don't tell Tío Berto, but she said I should read it and I don't think I can do any of that…"

Enrique felt the laugh coming, but was powerless to stop it. He bent forward, the laugh gripping him tightly around the throat, tears threatening at the corners of his eyes.

"Papá!"

"Sorry. But if it's the book I'm thinking of… just don't try it. It's ridiculous. There are other problems with it, too, but mostly it's just ridiculous. That's not how it works, and you don't have to learn it from books like that. You _shouldn't_." He wiped his face. "And Rosa should have a long talk with Tía Carmen about that one. I'm not touching it."

Miguel sat down on the toddler-sized stool beside a tiny vanity (Papá had made the set for Gloria, and it had gone through Rosa's hands as well), looking like a giant sitting in a human house. He seemed relieved at having brought the subject up. "It's just weird."

Enrique waited for the last of his laughs to pass, then said, "Miguel, you don't need to worry about the complicated parts yet. And the complicated parts? They're not what you're thinking they are."

"What are they?"

"Trying to figure out how two different lives can fit together and be one bigger life, while still being themselves. It's not always easy."

"But… you know what I mean."

"I do. But that's not something you should be thinking about until you know how your life is shaped, Miguel. And how another person's is shaped. At least enough for you to understand how they _might_ fit together."

"I don't think that's how Abel and his friends act."

"Tío Berto needs to talk to Abel." Enrique sighed and leaned forward. "There are different ways to be a man. Different men to be. There are men who treat it as nothing special. Just a game."

"And that's wrong?"

"It is, but that's not what I want to tell you. I wasn't ready for this conversation tonight. I don't really have a plan."

"Do you usually?"

"I thought I would for this. Can I have a minute to put my thoughts together?"

Miguel nodded, but continued to watch Enrique avidly, which was disconcerting.

"All right," Enrique said. "What I want to say is that treating love as a game cheats you. It cheats the woman in question, too, but I think a lot of boys who choose that path don't care. You can have fun. You can score points. But you miss the good stuff."

"What's the good stuff?"

"It depends."

"On what?"

"The person you fall in love with."

"Oh." He looked out the little window. "Is there good stuff about me, too? I mean, do I need to… learn anything… to have good stuff?"

"Not the way you're thinking. And definitely nothing from Rosa's book."

"Is this where you say to just be a good man?"

"Yes and no." Enrique leaned back. "There are a lot of ways to be a good man. I think you'll become one unless you do something that doesn't seem very likely from where I'm standing. But what kind of good man? Your Tío Berto, he's a businessman. He doesn't talk about his feelings much, and when he does, he's not very good at it. Papá Franco, he's a bit of a brawler. A good match for Abuelita. They take care of the family. Your Papá Isidro likes to lead you on little quests, and teach you. Papá Julio was always a gentle soul. And from what you've told me about Papá Héctor, he was devoted to his family and was funny and kind."

"You're funny and kind," Miguel said. "At least I think so. You're actually like Papá Héctor, sort of. But without the tap dancing and Frida Kahlo costumes."

"Having listened to you talk about him for several months, I'll take that as a profound compliment."

"But Mamá isn't anything like Mamá Imelda."

"Strange how that works."

"Will I be like you and Papá Héctor?"

"Your mother thinks you will."

Miguel considered this answer. "You don't?"

"I don't know yet, Miguel." Enrique smiled. "You're like me some ways. You love your baby sister, just like I do. You're excited about what you do. Believe it or not, I feel about my shoes the way you feel about your music."

"I do believe it."

"But you've got a lot that isn't me, too. You're stubborn, like your abuelita. And _her_ abuelita, as you tell it."

"There's that…"

"You're more impulsive than I am. I don't think that's just age, either. Even when I was thirteen, I wouldn't have kissed a girl I only knew for two days."

"Do you think I shouldn't have?"

"I need to think about that answer." Enrique sighed. "You're braver than I am."

"No, I'm not!" Miguel said, offended.

"Yes, you are. I think I'd have frozen up if I'd found myself cursed to the other side."

"I was really scared at first."

"It wouldn't require courage if you hadn't been scared."

"You would have found courage. I think you're brave."

"Thank you." Coco reached up at a band of starlight, and Enrique watched her for a while, then said, "The point is, the good stuff isn't all there yet. There's a lot of it that is, but I think as you become a man, there will be so much more. And then you'll find someone who sees it all, and loves it. And who sees the not-so-good stuff, because we all have that, and loves that, too."

"I thought you weren't supposed to love the not-so-good stuff. I thought it was bad to… I don't know, ask people to…" He lost the thread. "I remember when I was seven and a woman came into the shop, and she had a black eye. And Papá Franco told her that she should stay with us until the police made her husband go away. He didn't think she should still love him for that."

"Oh, when I say not-so-good, I don't mean _bad_. There are also many ways to be a bad man. There's a difference between hoping someone will put up with you telling bad jokes or being forgetful, and hoping she'll ignore it if you hit her or steal her money." Enrique shook his head. "All of that comes down to being selfish."

"But I _was_ selfish."

"You were selfish as children need to be selfish to become themselves. You weren't selfish in the way I mean."

Miguel was quiet, but Enrique suspected the conversation wasn't over, so he remained quiet himself. Finally, Miguel took a deep breath and said, "I was proud to think I was related to a murderer."

"You didn't know he was a murderer. You knew he was a great singer and guitar player, and you learned something important from him. Maybe the only good thing there was to be gotten."

"But I knew all of his movies…"

"You knew the characters he played." Enrique shrugged. "Movies are good at showing good men sometimes, even if no one making them is a good man. It's all right to look at a movie character or a book character—just be careful of which movie or which book, the same as you're careful of which real man or woman you admire. And as long as we've gotten to that point, I want to also tell you that you don't only need to look at men to see what kind of man to be. You are your mamá as much as you are me. You're Mamá Coco and Abuelita and Mamá Imelda, too. The things that make a good man are often the same things that make a good woman, so don't ignore half the human race in deciding who to be."

He smiled. "I could be like Mamá Imelda?"

"She was an amazing woman who kept her family together in the aftermath of something unthinkable. And you've made that family whole again after learning the truth. I think it's safe to say you have a big part of her spirit in you."

Miguel seemed inordinately pleased by this, smiling broadly at the idea. "That would be good," he said.

"Very good."

"But the other part. The…" He made another vague gesture. "Is it hard to learn?"

"The physical part?"

Miguel nodded anxiously.

Enrique expected to be embarrassed by the question and was, but not as badly as he might have been. It was a fair question, and he was glad Miguel felt comfortable enough to ask it. That surprised him. He had thought he would panic entirely when this came up. "Well… like anything else you do with your body, it takes practice. More than tying your shoes, less than guitar playing or flamenco dancing. And your teacher is likely to be someone who is also just learning. Maybe not, but probably. And stay away from Rosa's books. There are about a million examples of how to be a bad man in them, and not much help in becoming a good one."

"Why does she read them?"

"She probably thinks they're telling her secrets. I promised not to tell Tío Berto, but will you promise to try and get Rosa to talk to her mother about it? I don't like to think she's getting her information that way."

"Sure."

Now, Miguel looked like he was done asking questions, but Enrique felt like he wanted to say more. He wasn't sure what. "Miguel…"

He looked up with the vague surprise of a child reaching for a hot stove burner, when a parent yells "Stop!"

Enrique thought about it. There was still a question hanging, and he wasn't sure what he was going to say about it until it was said. "You… you wanted to know if I thought you shouldn't have tried kissing your friend Bridget."

Now, Miguel's eyes widened, like he thought he was about to be yelled at. "I… um… I didn't really think it through and…"

"It's okay. Maybe there's no should or shouldn't about it. She's a nice girl. Pretty. But she's probably not coming back."

"I know."

"I doubt you were thinking about that at the time."

"No." He gave an embarrassed little shrug. "We were looking at maps on her phone and trying to figure out how to get back and forth. And… well, your heads get kind of close when you're looking at the same phone and…"

Enrique held up his hand. "I don't need the details. It's okay. But as you get bigger… it may not be okay to get involved with girls you'll never see again. Things can happen. Be smart."

"Okay."

"And on the matter of being smart, in practical terms… I wasn't ready for this talk tonight. We'll make some time to talk again, and I'll be more practical. But the practical part is the least important part. Sort out the important things first."

He nodded and started to leave.

"One more thing," Enrique said and stood up. He opened his arms. Miguel stepped into them, and Enrique held him close, hot night be damned. "I love you, mijo. So much that it just knocks me over sometimes."

"I love you, too, Papá."

"And that's what I want for you someday. To have someone you love as much as I love you and your sister. Someone who means everything. Because _that's_ the good stuff."

Miguel didn't answer exactly. He just hugged Enrique more tightly, then let go and headed back toward his own room.

Enrique watched him go.

He picked up Coco and carried her back to the main bedroom, where Luisa was sitting beside the door that separated the two rooms.

"How much did you hear?" he asked.

"A night this still?" She shrugged. "Enough."

"I think I did all right."

"I think so, too. You may survive your son growing up after all."

"Maybe." He set the baby down in her crib and kissed her head. "But _you_, Coco, are forbidden to do any more of it. I definitely won't be able to handle that…"

Luisa rolled her eyes at him, ran her hand up his back in a friendly way, then went back to bed.

Enrique sat up beside the crib for a while longer, then joined her.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**

_Descansé de la batalla  
Unos momentos de paz  
Pero veo y tengo pavor  
Debo cruzar el campo,  
Navega el mar de sangre  
Y escucho el tambor._

_I had a rest from battle  
A few sweet moments' peace  
But the fight is still to come  
The end's across the field,  
Beyond the bloody sea  
And I hear the battle drum._

In the three months since Imelda had sent him back to work, Héctor had felt normal, even with the visit to Ernesto and the small nuclear explosion that had been Imelda's fury when she found out about it. ("This man literally murdered you, and you sat alone in a room with him? You might never have come home! Again!") The visit had been disturbing, but not surprising, and there had been something comforting about having a fight on equal terms with Imelda and coming out on the other side of it without any lasting damage. He'd apologized for scaring her, but not for the visit itself. She accepted that he had the right to make his own decisions ("even stupid ones"), but reserved the right to call him on it when he'd done something so foolish. He realized it was foolish to accuse her of treating him like a child—the two of them had always taken care of one another and worried over one another, and she _was_ his wife and he owed her some responsibility—and she realized that he really did need answers about what had happened so long ago. So they fought, they made up, and they had breakfast with the family the next morning and went on with things.

The show was coming together. Frida had created a false flesh for the Valhalla scenes that would look realistic from about the fifth row back, though it was a bit disturbing up close. Héctor had been her test subject for the first few tries, and he now had a collection of increasingly realistic faces, which he'd hung up in the music room with funny paper hats over them until the family had protested. Now, he just had one hanging in a room that had appeared to one side of the music room, which they all agreed was his "den." He'd put the final form on one day and looked into a mirror. It seemed very strange after all these years.

The auditions had started, and the orchestra was already practicing. Héctor and Imelda had demonstrated the songs for Frida, Gustavo, and a few other backers, all of whom were quite keen to cast them as Inga and Timoteo. They still gave him pained looks when he talked about casting someone else. Frida's husband, Diego (Héctor wasn't sure how that worked, really, since he had three other wives; marriage seemed complicated enough with just one), was painting the backgrounds. He wanted them to express some kind of class struggle between the well-to-do Valkyrie of Valhalla and the poor skeletons of Mictlan, but Héctor didn't think the audience would even notice, since it wasn't what the play was about. He wasn't even sure the Valkyrie were well-to-do.

He had never really tried writing songs for a drama before this, and he found that he enjoyed it a lot. It was much more satisfying than the silly sketches he and Ernesto had used to join essentially unrelated songs. He'd gone to the library with Felipe several times and acquainted himself with the language of musical theater. There had always been music in theater, but this genre had really flourished in the decades following Héctor's death, and now, he wished he'd discovered it earlier. He didn't think it was his calling, exactly, but it was nice to learn a whole new style, and nice to be working with other artists full time. It was good to be a real musician again.

The family was falling into a routine that gave him a kind of strength he didn't remember ever knowing, even in the golden early days, because now he wasn't scrambling to keep a roof over their heads and knowing that he was falling behind. Newspapers, meals, singing in the workshop, sometimes singing around the fire. Going to the plaza with Imelda and singing the old songs, the new ones, and sometimes previewing something from the show.

He had forgotten over the years the sheer joy his marriage had once brought him, as well. The memories he had were like the fading smells of a garden in winter… pleasant, but not vivid. Now being with Imelda again almost overwhelmed him with how _alive_ he felt, which, given their circumstances, seemed strange. But singing together and laughing, and even fighting with her from time to time when their personalities and priorities clashed… it was like being in a lightning storm, the energy just arcing through him. And, while nothing was quite as physically satisfying as it had been when they had bodies, they _had_ found ways to love each other. Sometimes, they just ended up laughing at each other over failed attempts, but that led to reminiscences about being young and utterly without guidance in the world, teaching each other how to make one another happy. There had been a few fumbles then, too, as Héctor recalled.

That nagging sense of being an ill-behaved boy who'd stayed out too late and gotten lost—the sense he'd had of himself often over the last several decades—was falling away. He felt like, at last, he was the man he wanted to be.

Naturally, it didn't last.

"No, no, no!" Frida shouted, storming up to the stage. Héctor stopped playing his guitar and waited for whatever the change was going to be. "It's more like this!" She stood in front of the small group of dancers auditioning for the chorus and made a sort of grand gesture with her arm.

The dancers smiled indulgently. Frida had never had much of a chance to dance as a living woman, because her body had always worked against her. She'd even lost a leg late in her life. Now, she danced at every opportunity… but she wasn't particularly good at it. Still, she was beloved in the world of the arts, and all of the artists around her let her go about the business of being Frida. The choreographer, a woman who called herself Nellie (Héctor had the impression that it wasn't her birth name), just nodded and pretended to take inspiration from the display, directing the dancers to do exactly what they'd been doing, with a slightly larger arm movement involved. She nodded to Héctor, and he started playing again.

He was only halfway through the audition piece when the door to the orchestra pit opened, and Imelda came through.

He stopped playing immediately and waved his hand to cut the piece short. It wasn't that Imelda was _there_. She often came if her work for the day was finished, and enjoyed the other musicians as much as he did. It was the look on her face, like a heavy burden had dropped down on her.

"Frida!" Héctor called. "Cut for the day."

She nodded and started to collect the dancers' résumés. Héctor set his guitar down and followed Imelda to the cavernous space under the stage. A few of the props and sets that Frida and Diego were designing were already scattered around, and Imelda guided him back to a snowy set with a half-finished arc that would be a window from Valhalla to Mictlan.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The Department of Law Enforcement dropped by. They're going to go ahead with de la Cruz's trial."

"Oh."

"The date is set. Next month. They don't know how long it will last. We'll all need to give statements about the spectacular—Frida, too—but you're the only one who can talk about what happened at his mansion. About the cenote."

Héctor sighed and felt the burden settle onto his shoulders as well, though sharing it didn't seem to make it any lighter on Imelda. Murder had come back into their life.

"It'll be over… after," he tried.

"I know."

It didn't help.

"What do we need to do now?"

"The prosecutor needs to talk to you. I can go to the office with you, but I can't be there for the conversation, at least the first one. He needs to take everyone's statements."

"Okay."

"That's this afternoon. We need to head over there."

"I don't even know where real law enforcement is. I've only ever dealt with Family Reunions. They dragged me in every year when I tried to cross the bridge. I never did anything else illegal, and it was never on a tour."

"There's a car waiting. They came to the shop first, and I insisted on coming along before I'd tell them where you were."

Héctor smiled and closed his eyes, just letting himself love her for a minute, then took a deep breath—was it really a deep breath, or did his ribcage just expand by some kind of body memory?—and let her lead him out the backstage door.

The woman at the wheel of the car wasn't in a uniform. She identified herself as a prosecutor's assistant, Natalia, and then said she was sorry to hear about Héctor's murder, and that "Remember Me" was her favorite song of all time. Héctor thanked her.

She drove them through a maze of streets, some cobbled and quaint, which led downward, toward Olvidados, though it didn't seem to pass it. There was water, and then a tunnel, and they started coming up through newer neighborhoods, finally zigzagging up a modern road to a nondescript building with white walls that seemed to be slightly bowed, the top just a bit narrower than the base. It looked like a lopped off obelisk that someone had pressed giant spoons into.

Natalia escorted them inside, and took them up on a metal elevator to a hallway lit by an obnoxious kind of blue light, then finally into an office that looked like every other office Héctor could see lining the hallway. A gray-haired man in a gray suit looked up sharply from a pile of manila folders. "Good," he said. "You brought both of them. Sit down. Natalia, bring coffee."

Natalia disappeared before Héctor could decline a cup.

The man stood up and came around the desk, an open folder in his hand. "I'm Fede Ruiz," he said. "I'm prosecuting your… please sit down, this will take a while." He had just looked up and seemed surprised that they hadn't immediately obeyed. As soon as Héctor and Imelda were sitting, he opened the folder again. "Now, as I see it, it should be clear. There's video evidence of the attempt on the life of the living child Miguel Rivera. It's quite lucky for him that he's not here to testify on the subject."

"So why should it take a while?" Imelda asked, incredulous. "There's a tape, and thousands of witnesses."

"De la Cruz will say that they didn't see what they thought they saw." Ruiz shrugged. "It happened on a stage. He will undoubtedly say that he thought he was performing a scene, and didn't realize there were no safety measures. His defender has already brought that up."

"No one would believe that," Héctor said.

"No. So his second line of defense was that he was driven temporarily mad by the efforts of a greedy ex-partner to mislead a living child into spreading misinformation on the other side of the bridge. That, in essence, _you_ tried to kill _him_ by using your great-great-grandson to destroy his memory."

"Why would I do that?"

"Revenge," Imelda suggested. "Is that it? Héctor is meant to have been getting revenge for his murder?"

"For the stolen songs." Ruiz sat on the edge of his desk and set the folder down. "His defender is not stipulating the old murder. But he will stipulate the theft."

"I'm surprised Ernesto admits even that much," Héctor said.

"He may not, but I know that's the defense his lawyer is planning. I think it's de la Cruz who is pushing the ridiculous story about a staged show."

"Tell an audacious lie first and hope that people will think the less audacious lie is true," Héctor said. "That's how he does it."

"For what it's worth, I don't think he has much of a chance, but he may waste a lot of the court's time grandstanding on the subject."

Héctor looked out the window. He guessed from the view that he was about halfway up the building. He didn't recognize anything. "Can you even get to this place if you're not invited?" he asked.

"Why would anyone want to?" Ruiz asked. "Even those of us who work here only come because we're passionate to get justice. And even we're not here full time."

"So, do we give our statements now? Who is the judge?" Imelda asked.

"It doesn't work like that anymore. It'll be an adversarial trial. Direct examination of witnesses. It's all very transparent. The old judges don't like it. They think it calls their actions into question."

"When did all of this happen?"

"In the living world. It's still shifting around. Maybe it shifts again before any of this happens. Who knows? But people had finally had it with poor people being railroaded into jail for stealing pesos while rich men could get away with… well, murder." Ruiz made a dismissive motion with his hand. "I know both ways. And I will carefully take your statements and have them ready to present to a closed court and a judge, just in case. But I think you will do better under the new system, to tell the truth. It's usually not true, because the police and judges and lawyers could work together better before. But in your case? De la Cruz is wealthy and famous and good at influencing people. He's the sort who could have easily convinced a judge to see things his way and dismiss the case. I think a transparent trial will be better for everyone, even if he does decide to grandstand, so I'll argue for the reformed system."

Héctor, who hadn't paid any attention to criminal matters because he had never had any plans to be involved in them, wasn't sure what to think. "So what happens?"

"There will be a judge. There will be reporters—"

"Reporters?" Imelda repeated.

"Open courts are fairer courts," Ruiz said patiently. "In theory."

"Wonderful."

Ruiz rubbed his head. "I will present my case. I will ask you questions. De la Cruz's defender will ask you questions."

"Ernesto will be there?" Héctor asked.

"Yes. He'll be there. And after I've presented your side—the official side, I will point out; I'm not representing _you_, I'm representing the law—then the other side will present a defense. Same way."

"I don't like the idea of him being there," Imelda said.

There was obviously nothing to be done about that, as Ruiz didn't say a word. Héctor leaned forward. "What happens afterward? What if he's guilty?"

"_If?_" Imelda repeated.

Héctor smiled. "If he's _found_ guilty."

"There's a jail cell," Ruiz said. "There's only so much we can do. He's already dead. But we can at least evict him from that house of his and make his afterlife a bit less pleasant."

"For how long?"

"In the living world, it's for life." Ruiz shrugged again, unconcerned. "Here? It's as long as he's remembered, and given his fame, that could be a long time."

"What about Odiados?" Héctor asked.

"I deal in the laws of this world, not the magic," Ruiz said. "I can send him to jail. Only living memory can send him to Odiados."

"What if he goes to jail here and the living change their memories later?" Imelda asked. "Will he be in a comfortable cell where he can't end up being repeatedly dined on by some cannibal conquistador?"

"Doña, please let me remind you that you are speaking to an officer of the court."

"Well, I didn't say _I_ was going to do it."

Ruiz gave Imelda a suspicious look, but apparently decided to let it go. "The answer is that, yes, if we imprison him, he will not be free to walk the streets that would lead him to Odiados."

"Then maybe the living _should_ take care of it," Imelda said.

"As I mentioned, I am not your representative. I'm the representative of the law."

"Does Ernesto know this?" Héctor asked. "If he did, he's likely to turn himself in. He said as much when I visited him with Coco."

"It's possible. I'll see to it that his lawyer knows." Ruiz looked back and forth between them. "Now, Señora Rivera, would you be willing to give your statement about what happened last year to Natalia while I speak to your husband?"

Imelda nodded warily, and Ruiz pressed a button on his desk, which apparently summoned Natalia, as she opened the door and came in.

"There's no coffee?" Ruiz asked.

"I'm your legal assistant, not your waitress." She smiled. "We've been over this."

He grimaced, then said, "Fine. Take Señora Rivera's statement, if you would be so kind."

"That would fall into my job description." She nodded briefly to Héctor, then gestured to Imelda and led her out toward another office.

"Your wife needs to watch her temper," Ruiz said. "I can lock her in a cell as easily as I can lock de la Cruz in one."

"She talks. She doesn't act on it." This was a lie, but only a small one. "What do you need to know?"

"I want you to tell me, in your own words, everything that happened on Día de los Muertos. I'll record you, and transcribe it later." He pulled a reel-to-reel tape recorder from a drawer in his desk.

Héctor tried to decide where to start. Finally, he said, "I tried to get across the bridge. I always tried—"

"By subterfuge?"

"I had to. There was no photo. I tried dressing as Frida Kahlo. I was helping Ceci Lopez with the costumes, and I borrowed one…"

The story took longer than he thought it would, because the memories seemed to come back in a rush, in complete detail, including details that Ruiz simply didn't care about, like Cheech's death, or singing in the plaza with Miguel. He was moderately interested in the argument they'd had afterward, but only because it had precipitated Miguel's decision to seek out Ernesto on his own.

"And at this time, the boy did not realize that you were his ancestor?"

"Neither of us did. He hadn't shown me the photo, and all he saw in it was the guitar that Ernesto had been using for years. Of course he assumed that the man in the photograph was Ernesto."

"No one in your family had so much as mentioned your name to him?"

"They thought I abandoned them."

Ruiz glared at the recorder for a while, then said, "I wish I could get him for your murder. In the old system, I might have been able to sneak it in to influence the judge, but…" He shook his head. "Well, it might not have mattered. Your wife didn't correct this impression?"

"She didn't realize he'd never heard my name, and he didn't say Ernesto's. She assumed he was looking for me and he assumed she knew who he was really looking for."

In point of fact, Imelda had been mortified when she realized what Miguel had thought. The idea that he'd been looking for Héctor was bad enough during that night, thinking he was seeking the runaway husband that she'd sought to erase. But the idea that he'd thought she'd been intimate with de la Cruz in any manner had been a matter of great shame. ("And it would have been before I knew the truth. Even at my worst possible assumptions about you, I'd have rather been your wife than his.")

But he didn't say this. It was private, and not relevant to the case.

Ruiz just gave the explanation a blank look. "Very well. But he told de la Cruz that they were related?"

"Yes."

"And de la Cruz believed it?"

"As far as I know. Ernesto had… he was… there were women. He probably assumed Miguel was descended from one of them. I know I did. When he first said it, I thought of about a dozen possibilities. Or more. Why? What difference does it make? Isn't it worse if he thought that?"

"Yes. That's the point. If he still believed it when he threw the boy from the stadium…"

"Well, he definitely believed it when he threw him into the cenote."

"Yes. How did that happen?"

Héctor braced himself and told the story, as far as possible without his voice shaking, about what had happened in Ernesto's mansion.

"And you still hadn't realized the truth?"

"I hadn't talked out loud about Coco and Imelda for years. I didn't feel like I had a right to… to ask for sympathy. So I hadn't told Miguel why I wanted to go back. Things would have been different if I had. Maybe I'd have found a petal and blessed him before any of that could happen."

"In which case, neither you nor your wife would have found out the truth."

"And Miguel wouldn't have been thrown from the stadium. Or down the cenote."

"Something de la Cruz could use to suggest that you were manipulating the situation to get to him and ruin him."

"That's ridiculous."

"And yet, not beyond what we've seen from him." Ruiz rubbed his head again, as if he had a headache from all of this. "Fine. So you came to believe that he poisoned you after seeing the movie clip."

"It was the same thing he said to me!"

"And it's borne out with the news from the land of the living, but with evidence you didn't have at the time. You proceeded to attack him?"

"I'd just found out he killed me. He called for security and had them throw me into the cenote."

"That was his order?"

"Well… he said to take care of me, and that's what they did."

"Hmm."

"What?"

"Well… if his order was to 'take care' of you, then it's possible that he'll say security acted on their own."

"The security guards won't back him."

This seemed to surprise Ruiz. "Are you sure?"

"I've spoken to them twice now. They regret it and want to see Ernesto punished."

"Or they want to make sure he takes the blame for their actions. They really should be charged."

Héctor sat back. "They did what he told them. They'll say so. But probably not, if you charge them."

"It might compel them…"

"They trust me."

Now, Ruiz who looked dumbfounded. "They threw you into a sinkhole, and you think they trust you not to ask me to press charges?"

"They're sorry. They're not good at being sorry, but they are."

"I think you're crazy, but I'll talk to them. I won't charge them unless they start acting like they won't talk. When was the boy thrown?"

"Only minutes later. I'd scattered—my bones, they used to come apart very easily—"

"I know what scattering is."

"Yes, well, I'd scattered, and it took a few minutes to pull myself together in a place where all the water was eddying. I heard Miguel scream before I was back together, and then I heard him start to cry. I went as fast as I could, but I was still weak."

"Why were you hurrying?"

"He was crying."

"You thought he was the descendant of the man who murdered you at the time."

"He was crying," Héctor repeated. "He was a twelve-year-old child, and he was crying. And we'd spent several hours together. And I liked him. He was a good kid, and a great musician."

"All right."

"Then we had a talk, and I mentioned Coco's name. And that's when we figured everything out, and then Imelda rescued us. After that, we went to the Spectacular, because Miguel wanted to get my photo back for the ofrenda."

"_Miguel_ wanted it. Are you sure it wasn't you who wanted it?"

"Of course I did. But he was the one who insisted. And he asked Imelda for help. I should have put a stop to it, though. It was too dangerous. Obviously."

"Yes, well, we have footage to prove that."

"Is that enough?"

"I think so. I don't think anyone will watch that tape and see a man who was so distraught that he didn't know exactly what he was doing, which is the only thing de la Cruz could realistically try. The alebrije attack might confuse the issue, but at least there's no sign of anyone in your family ordering it."

"Of course not. We weren't even thinking about him right then. We just wanted to get Miguel back home. Pepita had her own priorities." Héctor stopped talking, and decided, just to be safe, to send Pepita to the land of the living for a little while. He'd never heard of an alebrije being put down for defending its charges, but he disliked too many of the places this conversation had gone.

"I can see you don't like me," Ruiz said. "And that's all right. I don't care about you one way or the other. But I _will_ put de la Cruz away. There will be no more hiding behind fame and money. I hope you're prepared for a few eventful months, Señor Rivera, because I very seriously doubt that Ernesto de la Cruz will go down quietly."

For that, Héctor had no argument.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter Nineteen**

_August 11, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
I'm writing from Mexico City this time, and Coco isn't with me. She's home with Mamá. Papá and Papá Franco and Abel are here with me. We're staying with my tutor, Carlos, and his wife, Tina._

_There's a court order to search de la Cruz's house on Tuesday, because the studio doesn't have the songbook, even though they said they did. I'm going with Calles on Monday on a tour—I hope nobody recognizes me from television!—to see if I see anything that looks like a place they need to look. I haven't told him everything, but he knows there's more to what I know than just guesses. I didn't even tell Bridget, so I can't figure out how he knows. Maybe Papá told him, but I don't think so._

_We aren't allowed to be there when they're actually searching. Even Calles had to pull strings with people he knows to be allowed there. But I wanted to be here to see what they find, and Papá said I could. Papá Franco and Abel wanted to come along in case anyone gave us trouble._

_Carlos has a music job tomorrow, playing for someone's fiftieth anniversary. He asked if I could join him, and the couple was happy to have me, so I get to play a real job. I wish I'd known earlier. I could have written a song especially for it. Fifty years is a long time to be married! I guess you and Papá Julio were married longer, so it probably doesn't seem like that much to you, but it sure seems like a lot to me! They're really nice people, anyway. Papá Franco and Mamá Elena have been married fifty years, too. Fifty-two soon. I'm going to surprise them with a song, I think. I'll start with the cowboy boots. Hey, I'm writing songs about shoes! It's a Rivera double!_

_I hope that next time I write, I'll have Papá Héctor's songbook with me. A lot could happen once we get it. Papá says to be prepared for not getting it at all—maybe de la Cruz copied everything and then destroyed it—but I think it's there somewhere. He still thought Papá Héctor was his best friend. I think he kept it. And if he did, it proves everything._

_Anyway, we'll know soon._

_Love to everyone,  
Miguel_

Enrique had not expected to spend a day of this trip at a stranger's anniversary party, but Miguel had first asked if he could see Carlos and his band perform and then been invited to play along, and one thing had led to another, and now Enrique, Papá, and Abel were sitting with Tina at a small table behind the stage, where she took requests and ran the machinery. "Lawyer and part time sound tech," she muttered. "He needs a real sound tech."

The crowd loved the music, which was there mostly for dancing. Miguel had sung one of Carlos's songs, and the old couple had danced to it, and fawned over Miguel for a long time. The band also played rock and roll and folk music from the 1960s, when the couple had been dating. Miguel stayed in the background for the songs he didn't know, but he was able to keep up after a morning's worth of rehearsing. Between sets, the drummer was showing Miguel percussion notation. They all seemed to take him as something of a mascot, and he was happily learning from all of them.

Abel, meanwhile, had been learning the sound board from Tina, and offered to take over for her while she went outside for a smoke. "Horrible habit," she said. "Come out with me, Señor Rivera. I want to talk to you." Enrique, leaving Papá in charge of making sure Miguel was all right, followed her.

The evening was warm and gentle, and the sun was setting in a soft haze of smog. They were on a balcony of the hotel, and Tina looked out over the city, lighting up as soon as she checked for a nearby ashtray. She was a pretty girl with light brown hair and green eyes, and today, she looked less like an up and coming lawyer than a high school girl at a dance.

"He'll be all right, you know," she said. "Miguel, I mean. Carlos would throw himself in front of a barreling train to keep him out of the kind of trouble kids usually get into in this business, and if that didn't work, Denny Calles would go in shooting. And I don't have the impression that your family would exactly take it lying down, either."

"We wouldn't." Enrique sat down on the rail opposite her. "And he's not likely to get into the kinds of trouble you'd think of, anyway. I wish the kids who _were_ likely to get into it had adults looking after them."

"If they did, they wouldn't be the sorts of kids likely to get into that trouble. It's a catch-22." She took a deep drag on her cigarette and blew it out, then said, apropos of nothing, "Are you going to sue the studio?"

"What?"

"Copyright is long over, of course, but this would be wrongful death and theft of intellectual property. There's a case to be made. It could be a much bigger payout than just a copyright suit."

"Blood money?"

She sighed. "Don't think of it that way. More… the only way there is left to punish someone for what happened. If de la Cruz killed your bisabuelo and stole his songs, so what? He's gone. He's beyond reach. But the studio built its whole brand on those movies, and the movies built their brand on those songs. The studio made insane amounts of money on the songs it claimed to have obtained from de la Cruz, but they never made any attempt to verify his ownership of them."

"What could they have done, if no one challenged them?"

"That's what they'll argue," she said. "That there was nothing to be done. That they were duped. Which would be easier to argue if they hadn't spent the last several months obstructing Carlos on his thesis. That made me suspicious. Some of the documents Denny forced them to turn over last week were de la Cruz's original contracts. They were the ones who insisted on not listing another songwriter. I doubt de la Cruz argued with them, but it was their stipulation. He presented them with documents supposedly signed by Héctor Rivera Esposito establishing de la Cruz's ownership—"

"They actually had his name all these years?" Enrique asked.

"I doubt anyone had looked at de la Cruz's contracts for a few decades, but yes, they obviously had an inkling early on that he hadn't written his own songs. As to the documents themselves, even a cursory evaluation of the handwriting would have shown them as a forgery."

Enrique braced himself. "How much could we get? I don't want to be crass, but I do want to pay Denny more than he asked for, given how much he's done for us, and Miguel has a guitar teacher who is woefully underpricing his services."

Tina gave a snort of laughter. "Denny thinks you walk on water and wants to give back what you've already paid. As to Carlos? Well, I personally would charge more, but I'm a heartless lawyer. Then again, Miguel gave him the last pieces of the puzzle for his thesis, and he's got a book deal out of it. I think you're square." She took another drag and let it out. "You could get considerably more than a private investigator's fee, or a music teacher's. If we prove complicity in criminal activity, if we prove that the studio was aware of de la Cruz's subterfuge… you could end up with the estate, since he left it to them. That would be _everything_. The house, the royalties, the incidental properties…"

"I don't want the whole estate," Enrique said.

"And who would you prefer to have it?"

"I don't know." He thought about it, wishing for a minute that he smoked, so he would have something to do while he was thinking. "What if we made it into a fund to help musicians who had their music stolen?"

"A legal fund?" Tina shrugged. "There've been worse ideas. The outright theft is actually pretty rare, though. Sometimes there's an actual coincidence—more often than you'd think, actually—and it's damned hard to prove it's not. But because people can make a real stink about it, what most companies do is trap someone in a predatory contract that takes their rights for next to nothing."

"That's still theft."

"Not technically. But, if a legal fund is something you'd like to think about, I know lawyers attached to the conservatory who'd probably help with it." She smiled apologetically. "But you'll probably want to keep enough to pay for Miguel's musical education. And the others. Maybe they want college, too."

"Would there be enough?" Enrique asked.

"Have you seen the house? By itself, it would pay for all of the children to be fully educated, with a slush fund to invest and make money for _their_ children."

Enrique sighed. "I think I'll ask Miguel. He'll know what Papá Héctor would have wanted."

Tina smiled faintly. "What's going on there, really? You talk like they know each other."

"They do. And that's all I'll say."

"You think a lawyer and a PhD student won't believe you?"

"I think it's Miguel's to decide."

"Fair enough."

Enrique sat with her while she finished her cigarette, and told her a little bit about Santa Cecilia. She told him about defending petty criminals, which didn't pay well, which was why she had money on the brain. ("Between you and me, if Carlos's grandparents hadn't given us their house so they could go traveling, I think we'd be living in a broom closet at the Conservatory.") He told her about the generations of shoemakers, which she obviously found alien, if quaint and sweet. She asked about her shoes. He told her they were fine for this kind of event. In fact, he decided to make her a better pair for court as a thank you for letting the family impose on her life, but decided to keep it a surprise. He didn't point out that her shoes betrayed the fact that she wasn't paid much. She probably knew.

When they went back in, the last set was over, and, while Carlos took care of the financial part of the evening, collecting a check from the couple's daughter and dividing up the tip jar, the family got the band's equipment packed back into the drummer's van. He drove off toward the center of town. Everyone else returned to Carlos's place, where they had a late night supper together and then went to bed in whatever spots they could find.

Enrique awoke to the sound of guitars as the dawn was coming up. Miguel and Carlos were in the computer room, where Carlos usually did his remote lessons, playing a duet. It didn't sound like one of Miguel's, and it didn't sound familiar, so Enrique guessed it was one of Carlos's. The lyrics were about a wall, and people trying to speak and break it down even as it went up further and further and further.

Enrique pulled himself up and walked groggily to the door. Neither of them noticed him as they finished the tune. Miguel had brought his practice guitar, leaving Papá Héctor's on the museum wall, and the two of them were sitting on stools and looking down at the music.

"Your sight reading is getting very good," Carlos said. "Do you like it?"

"It's nice. Kind of part ranchera, part American folk, right?"

"Yes. Kind of the point. It's sort of a protest song."

"I don't know about politics."

"Don't bother until you're older. It's depressing."

"Bridget was telling me some of it. She said it's probably better if I don't visit right now."

"Visitors are probably fine. Musicians are probably fine. Anything else is a damned mess." He leaned over the music, which was spread out on a low table. "Do you think the key change is too much?"

Miguel thought about it. "I don't know. It makes a big moment, but maybe it would resolve better if you left it in G."

"That's what I was thinking while we were playing. I don't think it needs the big moment. It's not a show tune."

Miguel grinned. "You're taking a student's advice?"

"I take all advice. I don't always follow it. But you have good instincts."

"Thanks." The grin became a broad, genuine smile.

Enrique didn't understand the music talk, but he did understand that Carlos was paying Miguel a great compliment, and that Miguel understood the magnitude of it.

He went and got cleaned up and dressed for the day. By the time he was finished, Miguel had put away his guitar and was helping Tina with breakfast. Abel shuffled in and started on some eggs and Papá was occupied with coffee. Carlos kissed Tina's cheek, then got out plates, which Enrique helped him set out on any available surface.

About halfway through the process, Denny Calles showed up with donuts to add to the mix. "Hey, Romeo!" he called to Miguel. "You better do the celebrity thing." He tossed over a pair of sunglasses. "Do you have something with a hood?"

"It's too hot. And don't call me that."

"Casanova?"

"No."

"Valentino?"

"Shut up."

Calles laughed and made a face. "You need to not be so recognizable. You've been on television talking about this, chamaco."

"And you think no one will pay special attention if I walk around looking like it's the middle of December?"

"Put the shades on." Miguel did so, and Calles examined him. "We'll slick your hair back. Hey, Carlos, do you have an extra earring?"

"My ear isn't pierced," Miguel said.

"I can take care of that."

"No," Enrique said. "Slick back his hair if you have to, but you're not piercing anything."

"No tattoos, either?" Calles asked.

"No tattoos."

"I could dress up as Frida Kahlo," Miguel suggested.

"That would be completely inconspicuous," Calles said. "Much smoother than a hoodie in August. And someday, you will explain the Frida fixation to me."

"So what are we doing, exactly?" Papá asked, coming in with a plate. "Why are we taking the de la Cruz tour?"

"They're shutting down for the official search tomorrow," Calles said. "I'm going, along with some police who are working it as a cold case. But I want Miguel's eyes on it first."

"Miguel's never been to de la Cruz's mansion," Papá said.

"No. Let's say… I think he may see things I don't. I think he may have seen things in the past that he hasn't told me about."

No one answered. They ate breakfast quickly and took two cars across town to catch the tour. Carlos, who was known to the tour guides and was considered a troublemaker, stayed home.

Miguel rode with Calles, and on the way, he used some kind of oil to grease his hair back, and had switched out a perfectly decent shirt for an oversized one with a rock band logo on it. He was wearing sunglasses. He still looked like Miguel, just in a costume, but Enrique supposed it was enough to keep someone from making the automatic assumption that he was the young mariachi singer who had appeared on a national news show.

If the neighborhood around the Conservatory had seemed forbidding to Enrique on the last trip, the roads leading toward de la Cruz's mansion seemed completely prohibitive. He expected the police to come up at any moment to stop the truck trundling along these expensive lanes, with their well-tended parks and sculpture gardens and fine restaurants. Even within the neighborhood, the mansion was a stand-out, set back from the street behind a high wall, with a wrought iron gate. There was a hastily made parking lot behind a high wall, so the other rich people in the neighborhood wouldn't be forced to see tourist cars or tour buses, and the morning tour was gathering at the gate. The grounds were so huge that there was a little electric cart to take people inside. It was painted white, with a Greek-looking design in gold on it.

Everyone paid normally, and no one mentioned anything about Papá Héctor. Abel was just looking around, dazzled. Papá grimaced as the cart pulled through the gate.

The grounds were finer than the city parks beyond them. There were cobbled pathways among ancient trees, a tall stone sculpture of de la Cruz from one of his more famous roles, well-tended gardens and ponds. There was even a small chapel, with a tiny flat area out front, which was where the cart pulled up to park, plugging in at a discretely hidden power station.

They got out.

"Why is there a chapel?" Papá asked quietly, when the tour guide started a little speech about how famous de la Cruz had been. "What kind of person steals songs, murders someone, and builds a chapel?"

"It was here when he bought it," Tina explained. "This is an old villa. Back from the conquest. It belonged to some important military man. Which doesn't make it any better, when I think about it, given the way the Conquest went."

Miguel looked up the walk, where a vast staircase led through several patios to the grand entrance.

"It's the same," he whispered.

Calles looked at him sharply, but the tour guide had suddenly taken an interest in them, so they all painted blandly happy expressions on their faces.

She still looked suspicious, but clearly didn't want to interrupt the tour. An American tourist asked in horrible Spanish if they were going to have to climb all the stairs. The guide answered in English, then went back and repeated herself in Spanish. "There's an elevator. We will take that way up. We'll be taking the stairs down, unless you have difficulties. If so, you can also take the elevator down."

Miguel kept staring up at the stairs, toward the arched doorway at the top.

Enrique put a hand on his shoulder and turned him around so they could follow the group. Another inconspicuous door into a lower level, and the group took an elevator up to the main entrance.

The interior was even more opulent than the exterior. The rooms were trimmed in dark, carved wood, and hand-painted Spanish tiles. A fine grand piano sat in a sunlit alcove. The tour guides had roped it off with velvet ropes. On the music stand, a copy of "Remember Me" was sitting, waiting to be played… but had, of all things, a peacock quill beside it, as if de la Cruz just had written the thing—possibly in his own blood, since there was no ink in evidence—and it had come out looking like a professionally published piece of sheet music.

Miguel looked over his shoulder, then raised his hand.

"Yes?" the tour guide said.

"That's not the door we saw, is it?"

"No. That leads to the grand hall. We're two floors up now. We'll work our way down to it."

So they walked through the palatial upper floors, where de la Cruz's music rooms were, and bedrooms. Tales were told of various actresses who might have "visited," the guide said with a wink. There had been other guests as well. Politicians, artists, everyone who was anyone in the 1930s. There were older things as well, secret chambers that previous owners had used. De la Cruz had apparently found and restored some of them, and used them to display his various collections. He had a large collection of priceless art, much of it from Europe, though he also had a selection of native items that infuriated Enrique. They didn't belong in some private collection. He'd also collected musical instruments.

"He only played the guitar and the piano," the guide said, "but he took an interest in music, and you'll find many ancient instruments here as well." She pointed at them vaguely, apparently noticing that no one (except Miguel) seemed even slightly interested. She reached the end of the hall and opened an elaborately carved door. "And this is the ballroom," she said, stepping in.

Enrique's breath caught. The ballroom was a three-story affair, and they were standing on a balcony that surrounded it. Tall arches defined the room below, and from here, they seemed to form a series of rotundas, each with cut tin ceilings showing the same Greek motif that was on the bus.

Miguel was gaping. Calles leaned over. "What is it?"

"Ofrenda," Miguel whispered. "It's the ofrenda room."

They went on with the tour, as the guide pointed out the sitting rooms off to the sides, where partygoers might retire from dancing to have cigars and bourbon. There was even a ladies' fainting room.

They came down another level, where statues lined the balcony, looking down on the revelers with indulgence. These were mostly Greek and Roman gods ("There is Catholic statuary in the chapel," the tour guide said, "but it was not seen as appropriate for entertainment"), though there were also more modernist pieces.

Instead of going down to floor level here, the guide led them off to one side through a door into another cavernous space. It only went up two levels, but it seemed huge.

"We're above the main door now," the guide said, looking at Miguel. "This is the main entrance hall. You can see the Spanish influence in the architecture here…"

She went on talking, not noticing that Miguel looked pale. He had taken off his sunglasses, because it was ridiculous to wear them in a room with no sun. He went to a stone railing that branched off into two staircases, and touched it with some degree of fear.

Enrique looked around. There was no immediate cause for fear—it was just a large room, with high walls. There were commissioned paintings from de la Cruz's movies on every side. Large statues formed part of the grand staircase that they were standing on.

"Are you all right, mijo?" Enrique whispered.

"It's the same," he said again. "People remember him here."

The guide led them down. "There is a swimming pool under the floor at the far end," she said, "but we haven't kept it up. It's a bit of a safety hazard. There's a second pool in an underground room beneath the chapel as well. We don't know which owner installed it, but that was apparently where de la Cruz's wilder parties were held."

"Where was it?" Miguel asked. "I mean, from here."

The guide pointed off to one side, at the bottom of one of the staircases. "You see that passage? It was a servant's passage once, going through a tunnel to the kitchen. It comes up near the chapel. Then there's a secret door. It's not on the tour. It's not really safe for tours. But we'll see the chapel!"

Miguel nodded, then told Calles, "It will be there."

There was no doubt in his voice, no hesitation at all.

Calles nodded.

They went on the rest of the tour, going through the tunnel (Miguel shuddered) and coming up back at the chapel, where they looked at classic Catholic statuary and the organ that de la Cruz had installed, though he wasn't known to have had regular services here. After it was over, the tourists were given time to relax in the garden.

Miguel didn't say any more on the grounds.

Enrique made sure to ride with him on the way back in Calles's car. "All right. What was that?"

"The cenote," Miguel said. "That's where it would have been. Right under the chapel. There wasn't a chapel there…"

"What are we talking about?" Calles asked.

"It's part of what we're not telling you," Enrique said. "We will someday, but maybe it's better if you don't know right now."

Calles frowned. "All right. But someday, when this is over, we will go to my office, have a drink, and get the whole story together."

"It's a promise," Miguel said, to Enrique's surprise. "But right now, that room, the one they said isn't safe for tours. That's where it's going to be. Somewhere."

They spent the afternoon back at Carlos's place, talking about not much at all. Abel showed everyone the progress he'd made on a music video about Papá Héctor and Mamá Imelda. They seemed to come to life out of the photograph and dance among the other pictures, which woke up and came with them, dancing among the living members of the family. Carlos, who was apparently at least somewhat interested in music videos, liked it, and the two of them started trying to figure out how to remove the crackles and distortion from the old recording.

Calles left after supper, and Enrique took Miguel for a walk. He found a little park, not as grand as the ones around de la Cruz's place, but relatively safe looking, and sat down on a bench. "All right. Truth."

Miguel nodded, but was quiet for a long minute. "I told you that de la Cruz tried to make me stay. That Papá Héctor and I got trapped together?" Enrique nodded. "He threw us both into a cenote. It was, like, an old Aztec thing with statues and things, like the ones in the mansion. Only it was real. Like… I bet we weren't the first things that got thrown there."

Enrique felt queasy, but kept his voice even. "You think he killed other people?"

"It's not that way in the Land of the Dead. They'd just break and get out. It only would have been me dying. And then I'd have just been a skeleton and gotten up and walked away, probably. I don't think it's full of bodies down there. I mean, _someone's_ been there, right?"

"Right…"

"But I think it's…" He shrugged helplessly. "I think it's where he puts things he wants to hide but not throw away. Like an ofrenda for secret things."

It was a strange turn of phrase, but apt.

"Are you okay, Miguel? Really okay?"

He nodded. "I sang on those stairs," he said. "I got up on the railing, and did a grito to get everyone's attention, and then I sang 'The World Is Mi Familia.' Then I fell in the pool. That really _is_ a hazard. I'm not surprised they keep it covered. Someone could get hurt." He took a deep breath. "It really happened. Sometimes, it almost seems like a dream. But I was there. It was the same. It happened."

Enrique put an arm over Miguel's shoulders, and led him back to Carlos's home. Papá and Tina were having a long conversation about the possibility of a legal fund for musicians, and Carlos and Abel were working on a video concept for one of Carlos's songs. Abel had his sketch-pad out. Miguel joined them, and Enrique settled down to read.

The next day was tense. Tina was back at work, and Carlos was in classes all day, so the Riveras just circled each other in the strange house, jumping on texts from Calles that came every half an hour or so.

"Nothing in galleries."

"Bedroom searched. They aren't eager to search the chapel."

"Told them to look in party room. No one has a key."

"Found old film reels from audition, dated 1921. May contain H."

Shortly after lunch, Calles sent a text that an obviously angry studio executive was coming with the key ("I threatened to use a battering ram"), and they were headed into the party room.

"It'll be there," Miguel whispered. "It _will_."

It was.

The texts Calles sent over the next hour were cryptic (Calles told Enrique later that night that he hadn't thought it was a good idea to reveal the particular sort of art collection they'd found there where children might be reading over someone's shoulder), but finally, they'd opened up an alcove where they'd found, among other things, an old charro suit that would never have fit de la Cruz. It was a light, ashes-of-roses color popular in the '20s, and had a belt with two crossed guitars on the buckle. It had been carefully folded and put into a wooden box. There was also a wedding ring there, stuffed into one of the pockets. And underneath it, wrapped in brown paper, was an old journal, filled with handwritten music, each song attributed to Papá Héctor.

Calles sent a photo of it. There had been a lot of talk of ghosts in Enrique's home over the last year, but that songbook, its image floating on a tiny screen, was the first time he really felt like he'd seen one.

Miguel held the phone to his heart and whispered, "We did it, Papá Héctor."


	20. Chapter 20

_Érase una vez, toqué__  
__una canción de luz y amor-__  
__Una canción de gracia gentil,__  
__Y desde arriba, un susurro__  
__pero la canción fue envenenada__  
__Y todos nos enfermamos__  
__La música marchita en la vid__  
__y cayó en lágrimas y polvo__  
__y rompió los corazones que sanó__  
__con un choque todopoderoso__  
__Dejó mi alma desgarrada,__  
__mi corazón se avergonzó___

_Once upon a time, I played__  
__a golden song of light and love-__  
__A song of beauty and of grace__  
__that whispered from above__  
__but the song became a poison__  
__when a push became a shove__  
__The music withered on the vine__  
__and fell to dust and ash__  
__and broke the hearts it once had healed__  
__with one almighty crash__  
__and left my soul ashamed and torn,__  
__my broken heart abashed_

Héctor knew they'd found his songbook long before it appeared in _Más Alla_, and even before the dream.

It was early morning. He was working with the conductor (a man called Eduardo, who was also a composer and understood Héctor in a kind of happy shorthand) while the new cast did a cold reading, and suddenly something went through him, something like the explosion of fireworks, or the burst of foam from a champagne bottle. He hadn't thought he was tired or slow, but suddenly, he was so fully awake and aware of things that he felt like he'd been in a coma for… years, really. Maybe he'd been starting to wake up over the last few months, but it had been the wakefulness of an invalid.

The thing that happened hit him so hard that he actually stumbled backward, clutching at his head. It seemed like he suddenly knew all of the places in his score that needed shoring up, and all of the right ways to do it. Songs played against each other in his head, point and counterpoint, melodies he knew and melodies that were yet to come.

It was like thousands of people had suddenly called his name.

Thousands of people suddenly _knew_ his name. Everything in their lives that had been twined through with his music was suddenly attaching itself to Héctor Rivera.

Was this what Ernesto felt all the time? Was this what it was like to be known?

"Are you all right?" Eduardo asked.

"My head…" Héctor put his hands to his forehead, trying to make the music sort itself out. It was wonderful, but dizzying and a little bit frightening.

The songbook was the only thing that _could_ have made it happen. He hadn't felt this when they found his body. No one but the family really cared.

But now…

They knew. They knew everything.

It took almost an hour to get his head back in order. Frida, who also dealt with it on a regular basis, fed him glasses of cold water and told him that he needed to focus.

Finally, his mind was his own again, and he still had all the answers that had come to him. He made himself work on the play, but even as he did, new snatches of music were playing inside his head. He wanted to get Imelda and go to the plaza and play for hours.

He was still buzzing from whatever it was when he did get home in the evening. The family had all felt some degree of it, but Imelda had gotten the most of it. She was practically dancing at her work station.

"Memories," Julio said. "It's the memories."

Héctor hadn't been able to sleep for three days. Nothing appeared in _Más Alla_, and he didn't go around asking the new arrivals. They had enough on their minds at the moment. But he needed to know.

And if Miguel had been able to call him, maybe he could call Miguel.

He picked up a guitar and began to play "Poco Loco."

He played most of his repertoire, including "Remember Me," but it was "Poco Loco" he kept coming back to, thinking as hard as he could of Miguel. If his fingers could still bleed, they would have been bleeding.

But he couldn't drift off, and the connection couldn't come any other way, not really.

So he set down the guitar, closed the door and turned off the light and tried to at least make himself drift… drift on the ocean, drift on the waters that ran through Olvidados. Drift like a marigold petal falling into the abyss and…

…Miguel was up and in a frilly room, walking a squalling baby in the moonlight, humming to her. Héctor couldn't get into what he was thinking because he wasn't asleep. But he was here. He'd managed a connection, if a shoddy one, where he couldn't see anything beyond the window, where even the walls of the room seemed fuzzy.

"What's happening, mijo?" he asked.

Miguel's song paused, and he stood up straighter. "Hello?" he called.

Héctor laughed at himself. He hadn't really thought about much beyond making the connection, and now he had no idea how to use it.

Miguel went back to his song, a lullaby that he had obviously made just for her, "And pretty cousin Rosa plays the violin for you, and lovely Tía Gloria will play a game of peek-a-boo…"

It was actually soothing, and helped Héctor get his mind focused. Miguel's voice was getting stronger.

"Mamá Coco watches you from somewhere far away, and Papá Julio guides you along to a place where you can stay…" This was followed by a few la-las and lu-lus. Then Miguel narrowed his eyes again, but kept singing. "And Papá Héctor's somewhere close, so we can sing our songs…" He took a breath, then, keeping it in melody, but not trying for real lyrics. "I feel like it's true, you know. I feel like you can hear me. We found it, Papá Héctor. It's coming home very soon. You were on the front page of _El Universal_. Can you hear me? I wish I knew…"

Then he went back to humming, and the baby quieted down and then the room was disintegrating. The connection broke. It would just never be strong when Héctor couldn't actually be across the bridge, but it did make him look forward to Día de Muertos (presuming the photo fragment Coco had saved would be enough). If he could make any connection at all without the bridge, then it should be a strong one when he was actually there.

He opened his eyes.

So it wasn't just _found_. It had been in the paper. On the front page. Héctor didn't delude himself into thinking it was all about the music. The music was obviously important to people—he had felt how important it was to them over the last few days—but newspapers didn't care about what songs people had danced to on their first dates.

Whatever got the story on the front page, it would have to be about Ernesto, really. About _how_ they had found the book, and what it implied.

What had possessed Ernesto to actually keep the thing? Why hadn't he just copied everything under his own name and burned it?

Oh, but that was easy enough. He'd kept it to gloat over.

There was a knock at the door, and Victoria's voice called, "Papá Héctor?"

"Come in," Héctor called. "It's all right."

She opened the door and came in. The house was in its state of urban semi-darkness. "Still not sleeping?"

"I managed a few minutes," he said, following her out into the sitting room.

"Your bones are practically glowing, you know. Not the bad yellow way, either." She sat down on the couch, and he sat across from her in a wing chair.

"Something's going on." He told her briefly about trying to contact Miguel. "Do you think it's real?" he asked. "It feels real, but is it supposed to work that way? It never worked that way when I thought of Coco."

"Mamá was never here. Do you want to know what I think?"

"Sure."

"You've said that you felt like you saw what happened in the workshop, like part of you went with Miguel."

"Yes…"

"I don't think that's metaphorical. I think he brought part of you back with him. I don't know how long it will last. We're meant to be whole and in one place. It will probably correct itself on Día de los Muertos when the rest of you is there. But I think that's why you can sometimes make that connection. And yes, I think it's real. It makes a lot of sense. People are remembering your songs, and learning who you are. All of those memories are part of you now."

Héctor sat there for a few minutes, staring out the window at a flashing sign, then said. "It feels good."

"It should."

"But isn't this fame? Isn't it what Ernesto wanted?"

"Yes."

"It shouldn't be good." He looked at her. "Victoria, everything that's coming into my head… the music went to good places. It was first dances. Weddings. Parties. All the great parts of people's lives. How could he feel all of this and not… not…?"

"Not at least regret killing for it?" she guessed.

"Yeah."

"I don't know. But depending on what exactly they found, there may be some memory poisoning."

Héctor winced. He'd seen cases of it. It wasn't fatal in any final way, but he'd seen other people in the land of the dead sicken badly when some memory of them became tainted. "I wish it wouldn't. I wish it didn't hurt anyone."

"You can't control that."

"It makes me feel guilty about feeling good."

"Well, stop that right now." She rolled her eyes hugely. "The memory poisoning doesn't come from you. The memory poisoning is entirely on de la Cruz."

"But it wouldn't be happening to people if they still thought of him as—"

"Stop right now. I mean it. Memory poisoning clears up for anyone who's not responsible for it. So they found out that their favorite song was sung by a murderer and written by his victim. In the end, they'll realize that that doesn't change their memories of dancing to it. Maybe it will make them think even more about the person they danced with!"

"Maybe…"

"But even if it doesn't, that's still not on you."

Héctor didn't argue. He knew she was right, logically. He also knew how he'd feel if he found out that something that had been an important part of his own memories had been built on a monstrous lie.

In fact, he _did_ know. Hadn't he had his memories poisoned as systematically as his body had been? Hadn't the memories of the living been poisoned toward him, leaving him weak and shaky for years here?

"I wonder what's happening to Ernesto right now," he said. "If this is happening to me…"

"If you go, will you please tell Mamá Imelda this time?"

"Promise."

But as it turned out, he didn't need to go.

He tried over the next week to ignore the constant boosts of strength running through him. The story finally appeared in _Más Alla_ on Thursday, when a music critic named Damian Mendoza passed over. The story had gotten a day of big play on the front page, but it was the music press that was following it now. "The newspapers aren't showing everything," he wrote. "But the rumor is that there was definitive proof that Ernesto de la Cruz murdered songwriter Héctor Rivera, found in a secret room beneath his vast estate, along with a collection of adult art which has not been shared with the press… if indeed, that's all there was."

The details of the find were fuzzy, because Mendoza had been one of Ernesto's last defenders ("What can I say? The man ignited my life-long love of music, and I didn't want to believe it") and he was focused largely on how betrayed he felt, and how he wasn't the only one feeling it. He implied melodramatically that he had died not of a sudden massive heart attack, but of a heart broken by such a deep cut.

Melodramatic, it might have been, but he was clearly distraught, and Héctor and Imelda went to visit him to try and give him some kind of comfort and get more information. He was still living in one of the hotels near Marigold Grand Central, where many people (Héctor included) stayed until they found their way somewhere else. The man was obviously still disoriented. He had frizzy white hair and wild eyes, and Héctor was willing to bet that the massive heart attack had been brought on not by heartbreak but by some kind of pharmaceutical overdose. The music business had always been full of that kind of thing, and probably always would be.

On the other hand, wasn't that, in itself, a symptom of heartbreak? And what did it say about a business that ought to be about happiness that so many people found it necessary to wrap themselves up in every chemical known to man to keep from going crazy?

Once he stopped weeping and begging Héctor's forgiveness for not believing immediately (Héctor just tried awkwardly to pat his shoulder during this, while Imelda straightened up the sparsely furnished room), he sat down on a padded chair and said, "Your family was there. I heard it from people. Lots of people. They didn't go with the police, but they were there the day before, with the detective. A boy, especially, the one who was on television. The little mariachi singer. Manuel?"

"Miguel," Imelda corrected, taking a seat at the little wooden table that mimicked the ones people were supposed to send postcards or letters from. Héctor resisted the urge to open the little drawer to see if there was stationery. Imelda turned on the little lamp, because the sky was starting to get dark.

"Yes, Miguel, of course," Mendoza said. "He's a talented kid. I saw him play. Even I couldn't think of anything nasty to say. I thought his tutor was using him to make a name, which I refused to give him by refusing to give him so much as a review. But the tutor was right."

"What did they do?" Héctor asked.

"I don't know. The rumor is that they went on the tour and told the detectives where to look. That they must have seen something. But they were definitely still in town when the news broke. It wasn't the boy who was on television that time. I don't remember the name. I was angry. I was sure it was a fake. It was an older man. The boy's grandfather?"

"Franco?"

"Could be." Mendoza shrugged wildly. "The reporters were trying to get to the boy—he was in a truck and they were trying to drive away—and the man came out and said something like 'You fame chasers have done enough! Leave the boy alone!'" He laughed wildly. "When was the press ever called fame chasers on behalf of a musician?"

"Did Miguel seem all right?" Héctor asked.

"I couldn't tell. Why wouldn't he be? He just proved his case, didn't he?"

"He was a fan of Ernesto's once."

Mendoza nodded, as if this had been a profound statement. "Yes… yes, now that I think about it, he said that, back in his first interview." He shook his head rapidly, like he was trying to shake water out of his ears. "Just before I died, there was a statement from the family. From…" He searched his mind. "I want to say… Elena? The older woman? They said she was the head of your family."

"Our granddaughter," Imelda said.

"Yes. She said that your family… what was it? She said they grieve with everyone else who was harmed by de la Cruz. I don't remember all of it. I was already ill."

_Already high_, Héctor corrected mentally, but didn't say out loud.

He didn't know anything else, really, but Héctor and Imelda stayed with him for the better part of three hours, listening to him ramble about the state of the music world, and how it felt filthy to listen to any music now (Imelda muttered, "I sympathize" at one point), and generally letting him calm himself down. He asked them if they knew where he could find "a little something" for his nerves. Imelda told him that he no longer had nerves to do anything for. The only thing that seemed to calm him down was Héctor picking up his guitar and playing for a little while. He stopped jittering and started crying, but when the fit was done, he seemed to be all right. He thanked them.

"What a mess," Imelda said as they stepped out into the street. "I don't feel much like going to the plaza right now."

"Me, either."

"I feel like _we_ should be happy at least."

"Proving there was a murder and theft doesn't make the murder and theft go away." Héctor put his arm around her waist, and she leaned into him as they walked. "But I'm happy," he said. "I mean, with everything _other_ than this. Everything's going to be all right."

They kept walking aimlessly through the pleasant evening. After a while, Imelda said, "Do you think this will make a difference at the trial?"

"I don't know. I think Ruiz would call this the magical part, not the legal one."

"Do you think he'll even still be here by the time we get to trial?"

"It's in two weeks."

"That's not an answer. It's—" Imelda stopped walking. "Héctor… look."

They came around a corner. Héctor hadn't realized where they were at all. Maybe the streets had just opened up to show them.

Ernesto's mansion hadn't re-grown to its original size, but it was now set apart, lit by sickly green lights, surrounded by a moat that looked like raw sewage, though no such thing could really exist here. The windows, which had always had a bit of a skull-like look to them (which, here, was more or less a friendly smile), had become ghoulish faces, grimacing down at the plaza below. If it had still been as high as it once had been, it would have been glowering over the whole city.

"Well," a voice said from the shadows. "Look who's come back."

Héctor moved in front of Imelda before he even consciously recognized Ernesto's voice. He put his hand on her wrist. He was protecting her, but not from Ernesto. She could protect herself from him. He was protecting her from her own temper, and he could tell by the way she was trying to pull away that it might be an uphill fight.

"Let _go_," she said. "Just let me…"

"Imelda, remember what Ruiz said."

"I don't care!"

"Oh, let her," Ernesto said, stepping out into the pale light cast by whatever was illuminating his house. "She always did fight your battles. A regular knight in shining armor for her damsel in distress."

Imelda did pull away this time, and she pulled her shoe from her foot, slamming it into Ernesto's face with one practiced swoop. The crack was thunderous in the quiet of the evening.

Ernesto laughed. "Go ahead. Keep going. Do you think it matters to me?"

Imelda obliged this, hitting him twice more in quick succession before Héctor could get himself between them again. He put his hands on Imelda's shoulders and said, "Don't let him bait you. I don't want him to end up separating us for another hundred years because Ruiz wants to make an example of you."

"It's not Ruiz's business."

"Imelda, please."

For a minute, she looked mutinous, then she bent down and put her shoe back on. When she stood up, she crossed her arms defiantly, glaring at Ernesto.

"What happened?" Héctor asked. "Here." He gestured at the house.

"My spirit guides… guided me." He looked across the moat, and Héctor saw three pairs of bright red eyes glowing in the twilight. Each was on a separate head, but the heads shared a single body now, a body much bigger than all three of Ernesto's Chihuahua dogs should have been together. They growled—a low, threatening sound. "I left my ofrenda room, chasing them, and the door slammed shut, and then they… well, you can see, they went through a bit of a change. They came after me, and when I stopped running, I was over the threshold, and now, I can't get back. Are you here to gloat?"

"I didn't even realize I was in the neighborhood."

"Of course not. Just following your… _wife_… as usual." His eyes moved over Imelda. If he'd still had a nose, it would certainly have been wrinkled.

"Neither of us cared enough about you to hunt you down," Imelda told him. "You're nothing anymore. You never were anything."

"Not true at all. I am Ernesto de la Cruz, and no matter what the living are saying now, it was Héctor who rode _my_ coattails. All he ever did was scribble songs. _I_ was the one who built our career."

"You built _your_ career on Héctor's body," Imelda fumed.

He laughed. "That's very funny, when you look at it. Héctor never made much use of his body to begin with."

"Will you both stop it?" Héctor asked. He looked at Ernesto. "Do you know what you did? Do you even have any idea?"

"What? Killing you?"

"No. Not me. We just came from a musician… people are hurt. Why did you poison _everything?_ Even if you had to kill me—"

"Which he didn't," Imelda said. "He could have just hired you, like a normal human being…"

"—I still don't understand why you had to keep going. You knew what it was to be a good man. You had it put into your scripts. Why didn't you just follow them?"

"You still can't tell the difference between movies and reality." He shook his head and sat down on a wooden crate. "You never knew how life worked in the real world. You always thought, 'Oh, it's all about being talented!' I had plenty of talent. You had plenty of talent. But you know how it worked? People with power wanted something from us, and I was the one who was willing to give it to them. Because that's how the world moves on in its little trips around the sun. So while you waxed poetic, I found the people who could make things happen. Rich blancas who wanted a taste of salsa, and I gave it to them. _Queridas_ and _cariñas_ and _mi almas_ until they couldn't take it anymore, and then I just kept giving it to them until they _begged_ to give us whatever I asked for… if for no other reason than to keep me from telling their fat cat husbands what they really liked. And the one time I asked you to carry your weight, you got high and mighty about it. So don't tell me whose body built my career."

Imelda snorted. "I'm sure my heart would be bursting with pity if I didn't know that you treated those women the same as any of the girls you ruined in Santa Cecilia. And don't even try to tell me those little starlets in the papers with you had favors to give."

Ernesto shrugged, unconcerned. "Eventually, I was the one with the favors. That's what success means. It means you stop needing to make trades. You're the one people want to please, and you decide how they should please you."

"You actually believe that, don't you?" Héctor asked.

"It's the great truth of the wild and the world. You never would have had any success at all because you never understood that."

"Then I'd have rather failed."

"Good job. You got your wish." Ernesto grinned broadly, and Héctor braced himself for something vile, so he wasn't shocked when Ernesto said, "The kid, though… he's hungry, isn't he? I wonder what he'll do out there in the real world, once he realizes that a nice voice and a little talent aren't enough."

Héctor was not surprised that Imelda answered, but it did surprise him that her voice was cool and calm. "Miguel has met you," she said. "I think that is enough of an object lesson for anyone to make sure he's never _ever_ like you."

"Then I hope he enjoys shoe business more than show business." When neither Héctor nor Imelda answered this, Ernesto made a grand gesture toward the heavens. "They still don't understand! Héctor… no one even noticed when you went missing. You were that much of a cipher to them. That idiot Esquivel just kept sending money. He never came to a show again. They didn't even question it when I said I bought the songs. The only people who ever asked after you were your wife and daughter." He thought about it. "And Annie Wittington, that Yanqui who gave us the seed money for the tour. She thought it was cute to see a man who acted like his brat's mother, while the mother handled the family business. She thought it was very modern. But who'd listen to her? Once she'd put up money for me, she smoked the rest."

"Did you kill her, too?"

"No. That was just a lucky break. Or an inevitable one. She nodded off in some opium den in California and never came back up."

"And you forged her name as a witness on those documents," Imelda said. "Classy."

"Where will you go now?" Héctor asked.

"I'm not taking a step away from here. I don't have any interest in finding out where the streets will take me."

Before the conversation could go any further, a trolley rolled up and three police officers jumped off the side.

"We had reports of an altercation," the woman in charge said.

"No altercation," Ernesto told her, then a sly look came over his face. "I tried to rob them. You'd better put me in custody until my trial."

He held out his hand, and the suspicious-looking officers cuffed him, leading him off down the street. As he went, the poisonous glow over his house faded, leaving it dark and deserted. The alebrije leapt over the moat and ran off to the south.

"What was that about?" Héctor asked.

"Free food and lodging and making sure he doesn't end up getting pushed into Odiados," Imelda said, giving Héctor a frustrated look because he hadn't picked that up. "Come on," she said. "Let's go home. I want to figure out how to throw that trial so his alebrije can chase him into the open arms of Cortes and Fierro."


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter Twenty-One**

_September 20, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
The law is really confusing, and I don't understand everything that's going on. There can't be a trial for de la Cruz here. Is there one where you are? Because everybody is dead, the only thing we can do is make the studio pay. Papá says it feels dirty, but we're going to donate the money to help musicians who are in legal trouble with their copyrights and bad contracts and things. We'll only keep what we figure might have been reasonable royalties (though Calles says we should assume that Mamá Imelda would have made good investments with it, whatever that means). My tutor, Carlos, is working on the historical royalty rates. It's going into his thesis._

_A reporter grabbed me outside school and tried to talk to me. I told him no, but he kept after me until a few of the mariachis in the square pulled him away and kind of made a wall around me and Rosa (we always walk home together, which you probably remember now). Papá and Tío Berto have pulled Rosa and me both out of school until things calm down, and I'm staying with Tía Meche in San Pedro and Rosa is with Tía Carmen's family._

_Papá had to go to the capital last week to testify, and Mamá Elena went with him to show the court the ledgers from all the years after Papá Héctor disappeared, to prove we never got money from the studio. It looks like de la Cruz did send one check, but since we can prove he'd already killed Papá Héctor by then and there was no agreement about the songs, that doesn't count. At least that's what Tina says. She's Carlos's wife. She's pretty and really smart. She's a lawyer, but it's different law. She says she usually helps criminals get away. I guess they're not criminals if they get away, but you know what I mean._

_By the way, we can completely prove it. They know what train Papá Hector was put on, and exactly when it left. So the suit is about wrongful death. There's a kind of law called "moral damage," too, which is kind of a way to punish people more than the actual money would add up to. Basically, if we win, we could end up with everything that de la Cruz left the studio, which was everything. Papá didn't want to. I don't want to act like it's about money. But it's the only way to hold someone legally responsible for murdering Papá Héctor, or at least that's what the family decided. And we didn't tell anyone, but I thought it might help over there if we could change people's memories._

_Only a lot of people are really sad. I saw someone's bisabuela on television, crying and crying because "Remember Me" was her favorite song and she always listened to it after her husband died and it made her remember him, and now she didn't feel like she was supposed to listen to it. I want to do something to help—it's like I was watching you cry!—but I can't think of anything that would be all right for everyone._

_Maybe it just needs time. Or maybe I'll think of something._

_Love,  
Miguel_

Enrique didn't drive the shop truck up to San Pedro. Berto had deliveries to make, and besides, driving something with the family name on the side wouldn't contribute to keeping the vultures away. Luisa and the children had gone up with Papá Isidro. In the middle of a school week. Enrique didn't like how much this trial had already interfered with their lives. Children needed routines.

At any rate, he'd ended up borrowing Abel's motorcycle. It had been years since he'd ridden one, though he remembered having enjoyed it. The enjoyment was still there as he sped out of town and started up the winding roads. For the first time in weeks, he felt completely anonymous, and completely free behind the helmet's face mask. The bike roared beneath him as he made his way up toward the village, cutting him off from everything but his own thoughts.

The day he'd testified in front of the judge, the studio lawyers had sat across from him, trying to trip him up, trying to find some ulterior motive… anything would have done. Of course—they were fighting for their legacy as much as he was fighting for his own. They'd kept coming back to why the family had been at the house. Miguel's disguise had been useless once the story had broken and someone who'd been on the tour with them had said, "Oh, yes, we saw the boy. He was acting strange." Where had Miguel gotten any knowledge of the estate? Had Carlos fed him information from confidential documents to which he had no rights?

It was a pointless argument, of course. There would have been no benefit to anyone if Carlos _had_ fed them information, and, as the judge herself pointed out, the studio had already been forced to give up the documents in question. It was all a desperate ploy to sling as much mud as they could at the family in the hopes that a protective instinct would make them give up. The studio's mudslinging had been less of an annoyance than the media's intrusion in their lives, mainly because no one believed them.

And what the studio _couldn't_ know was that the family was circling its protective wagons around Papá Héctor as much as anyone else. That it mattered to him in a real way.

One of the finds in the de la Cruz mansion had been the silent film reels of the two of them auditioning for the studio. De la Cruz was obviously the movie star for that time. He performed everything with a kind of exaggerated machismo that would have seemed funny if he hadn't been a murderer. But Papá Héctor performed alongside of him, and seemed entirely real to Enrique. The lawyer who was handling the case had decided to make a production of it for her closing number. A deaf man who read lips made dialogue cards to fit in, as if it were a silent movie in final production.

While de la Cruz had oozed around the ridiculous sets trying to look like a leading man, Papá Héctor had played the clown, falling off a rocking box that was supposed to be a horse and then giving a wild bow, laughing even though he clearly didn't feel well. When he was supposed to kiss an actress who was auditioning, he made a show of falling over his feet. The cameras kept rolling as he told the actress, "I hope I didn't spoil that for you, but my wife wouldn't like it if I kissed you. I'm just here as moral support for the big star." In another clip, he and de la Cruz were supposed to be dueling with swords that were obviously made of foam. De la Cruz "won" easily. Papá Héctor was sweating at the end of it (the medical examiner said he was probably feeling ill from the repeated low doses of rat poison), but he laughed and said, "Look at me, the swashbuckler! I'll be a white knight yet!" Then he'd caught a case of the giggles. In the final shot, he was supposed to be giving a soliloquy about something, but before it started he said, "What am I supposed to say? Make it up? Wouldn't I have a script? Oh…. Anything? All right." He adopted a deeply serious expression, appropriate to whatever the scene was supposed to be, but what he said was, "I have a little girl. She's four. She wears her hair in twin trenzas, and we sing together every night. If I could have any wish, anything in the whole world… if a genie came here right now and said, 'Héctor, you can have three wishes,' all three of them would be to go home."

The lawyer had made this the final thing that the judge would see. The studio would try to argue that this man had then sold his songs and run off—or that they had reasonably believed he had—but no one would buy it. Someone had known. Someone had known what kind of man Ernesto de la Cruz really was, and someone had covered it up, leaving Papá Héctor's family twisting in a cruel wind for a century.

But that wasn't all Enrique had seen. Watching this living man frolicking around on a sound stage, laughing and making jokes, talking about his wife and daughter… Enrique had returned to the hotel the night after he'd first seen it, and he'd wept. The man on the screen was much closer to Miguel's age than to Enrique's own. His body had gone through the changes that the late teens bring to a man, and his face and words showed that he'd gone through a lot of maturing early on, but in the end, he was barely more than a boy, a boy whose life was being snuffed out even as he made absurd jokes and prat falls. Enrique looked at him and saw not his great-grandfather, but his son, needing help that would never come to him.

_Unless it's coming now_, he thought, steering the bike up through the low clouds. _And if it is, it's not better late than never. It's just too damned late. Why didn't anyone help him then?_

And that was why he would push on with this, no matter how the studio gnashed its teeth, no matter how the press harassed him. Because people had to know. And because he wanted the world Miguel was entering to be kinder and more compassionate than the world Papá Héctor—and too many other musicians and artists to mention—had ever known. They _would_ use the money to make a safe space, a protective sphere, for all of the Papá Héctors of the world. Maybe then, at least, it wouldn't have been in vain.

He forced the trial out of his head and just felt the power of the bike as it took him around the turns, driving away from the setting sun, so he seemed to be rolling into a pile of red silk. Finally, he saw Papá Isidro's truck in Tía Meche's front yard, and on the porch, there was Luisa, feeding Coco and reading a tattered paperback while the little street cat Pepita perched on her shoulder. Pepita had arrived abruptly a few weeks ago, and had not left. Enrique wondered if she was somehow planning to report on the progress of the trial. Luisa and Mamá took special care of her, and she'd attached herself firmly to the baby. Leaving her behind had not been an option, and she was apparently getting on reasonably well with the local cats. Maybe they knew she wasn't actually a rival for their territory. Or maybe they knew they would never win.

Luisa grinned when he came up the porch steps. "Ah. Who is this dangerous biker? Have you come to steal me away?"

"Well, a beautiful girl like you doesn't belong on the arm of a mere shoemaker."

Luisa grinned playfully, and he guessed she meant to start teasing him, but the door burst open and Miguel came out and said, "Pa duixi, Papá!"

"Hello to you, too. I see Tía Meche has you practicing."

"Total immersion," Luisa muttered, rolling her eyes.

"She's teaching me songs, too," Miguel said, unruffled. "And now I know why Papá Isidro used to call me 'Migu' when I was little. It means monkey. I thought it was just a really weird thing to be short for my name. Do we know anything yet? I haven't had any bars on my phone for two hours."

"I've been on the road for about that long," Enrique said. "But it's Friday night. I doubt anyone's making legal decisions. And can we move up here? I could live with no bars on my phone for a long time."

"When _are_ they expecting a decision?" Luisa asked.

"I don't know. Soon. The judge is reading everyone's statements, and going over the evidence. I think it's all pretty clear-cut. So does Tina. But that lawyer, Martinez… he says not to count any chickens. The studio is rich."

Miguel sat down on the porch step and looked out at the late sunset. "Are people still crying on television?"

Luisa looked up sharply. "Miguel, what did I tell you about watching that?"

"I haven't been watching it."

"And reading the news."

"I haven't been reading it, Mamá, really."

"And you haven't been asking Carlos when you can get through?"

Miguel bit his lip.

"Miguel!" Enrique said. "You promised Mamá that you'd let it go."

"I tried!" He picked up a pebble and started tapping it on the step in a steady beat. His foot tapped in counterpoint. Enrique wasn't sure he realized he was doing it. "Carlos wouldn't tell me and said _he_ promised you he wouldn't let me dwell, too."

"And who else have you been trying?" Luisa asked.

He looked down, then sighed and said, "I texted Bridget to see if anything was on Telemundo. She said they're not covering it at all up north. Then she said I shouldn't think about it and it wasn't my fault."

"Smart girl."

"I never wanted anyone to feel bad."

Luisa sighed, then stood up and handed the baby to Enrique. She sat down beside Miguel and tucked her skirt neatly under her legs. "Of course you didn't. And we'll make things better."

"How?"

"I don't know. But we will." She put her arms around him, and they leaned their heads together. Their faces, so like one another, rested peacefully side by side.

Enrique held the baby closer, and for a moment, he felt the force that bound them together as a single thing, the family force that had its own power, its own existence separate from any of them as individuals. It was a thing outside of time, capable of touching Papá Héctor and Mamá Imelda, able to reach forward to children not yet born, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who would see more than Enrique had ever dreamed of. All of it was there in that moment of looking at his wife and son.

Then Coco started to fuss, and he realized that she needed a change, and the door opened, and Tía Meche came outside to say hello. Miguel's melancholy broke—or at least he covered it—when his cousins Chayo and Nico came out with a board game, and Luisa started fishing for fresh diapers.

They spent the rest of the afternoon and evening not doing much of anything. Papá Isidro was spending the night in town at a boarding house, as he claimed to have no patience for a house full of children, though Tía Meche implied that the woman who ran the boarding house was a greater attraction for him. ("She was his sweetheart when they were children.") Miguel played children's songs for his cousins, who were eight and nine and apparently had decided that Miguel was a cross between a big brother and a famous luchador. After supper, everyone gathered around to watch a brainless action movie. Miguel made an effort to pretend this was educational—apparently, Carlos had told him to listen to movie soundtracks to see how music worked within a narrative—but he wasn't very committed to it. Enrique doubted he was analyzing orchestration techniques when he and Nico teamed up to shoot invisible laser guns at Chayo, who was pretending to be the movie's villain. Well, Miguel had the laser gun. If Enrique was reading the play right, Nico was shooting spider webs.

"It's good to see him playing," Enrique said, plunging his hands into the sink to take care of the dishes before Tía Meche could tell him that he didn't have to. "Thank you for letting us come up here. It's a little crazy down the mountain."

"It's always crazy," Tía Meche said. "Why do you think I stay up here and don't go into town?" She picked up a towel and started to dry the plates as Enrique finished rinsing them. "The boy has his moods, but he's fine. Yesterday, he and Luchi and Chayo built a pillow fort and held off a whole invading army. Which was Loli and Nico and that cat that came with you, but still, a valiant battle."

"That's good to hear. Though I don't know about challenging Pepita. She's pretty tough."

"I've been grateful for his help. Luisa has helped with chores. She fixed every squeaky door in the house! But Miguel's been watching the little ones for me. I've had so much free time, I feel almost sinful."

"He was always the baby until the twins were born. By the time they were old enough to play with, he was already pretty deep in his secrets. Now, I think he's realizing that he's good at it."

"It's a thing boys learn from their fathers. He's got a good teacher."

Enrique smiled. "Thank you. I always thought you didn't quite approve of me."

"You always think Isidro doesn't approve of you, either, but I'll tell you something—the night you asked him if you could propose to Luisa, he called me before you even got around to doing the asking, to tell me about it. He was excited for her. He always thought you were a fine man."

Enrique could think of no answer that wouldn't either minimize the importance of what she'd said or sound self-congratulatory, so he said nothing.

Tía Meche dried a few plates and put them away. "You worry too much about things, but that's not a bad trait in a man with a family. Better than worrying too little. But Miguel worries too much, too, and he's too young for it."

"I know. I wish de la Cruz had cared half as much about his own fans as Miguel does."

"If he were that sort of person, we wouldn't be in this situation."

And of course, that was where everything ended. It took a thousand good people to undo the harm of one evil one.

They finished the clean-up, then Enrique helped put Chayo and Nico to bed. Apparently, Miguel had been singing to them at night, and they had a whole list of requests, which Miguel obeyed faithfully. He'd need to learn to put a limit on that. Bedtime was still bedtime at their age, and they needed to have the door closed.

But Enrique didn't interfere. He sat with Luisa, who was rocking Coco, and Tía Meche, who seemed to just be reveling in having adult company. She told stories from her childhood with Isidro in the sixties, when the world had always seemed ready to turn upside down. She asked Enrique about the capital, and world politics, and whether Juarez had seemed as violent when he was there as it seemed on the news.

Finally, the music upstairs stopped, and Miguel tiptoed down, setting his guitar up against the wall. He came to the table and grinned proudly. "They're asleep."

Luisa smiled back. "When Coco starts playing games with us, I'm putting you in charge of getting her to bed."

This seemed to please him. He pulled out his phone and scanned it. "Two messages got through, but nothing about the trial."

"I told you it wasn't very likely tonight," Enrique reminded him.

"Rosa has a lead on Mamá Imelda's people."

Tía Meche rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me. Mostly Spanish."

"We knew that. She remembered having had a nanny. She told Mamá Elena stories about before she was an orphan, and she lived in a big house, but then her nanny took her away in the middle of a fire. Another nanny tried to shoot the twins."

"When did we find this out?" Enrique asked.

"Mamá Elena always knew. Rosa started asking. She's looking for hacendados who got murdered before the Revolution."

"Could we _not_ have another murder?" Enrique asked.

Tía Meche raised her eyebrows. "Not wishing that they weren't exploitative landowners who most likely made their workers' lives miserable?"

"Yes. But mostly, I wish no one had been murdered. I wish they had changed their ways instead and been good bosses and maybe let some of their workers earn enough to buy their own bit of the land." He poured himself another cup of coffee. "Is it too much to ask people to think of some solution other than murder?"

"Most people do think of other solutions," Luisa said gently. "Think of how many days you've gone since the last time you murdered someone you disagreed with."

"Ha-ha."

"I'm not entirely kidding. We keep tripping over murders, but most people aren't like that. It's easy to forget that when it's all you keep stumbling over." She touched his wrist gently when he sat down, then looked to Miguel. "What did Rosa find?"

"It wasn't a very long message. She said she's following a few of the uprisings up in Guerrero. And I don't really know what she's talking about. I think she thinks I know."

"You _should_ know," Enrique said. "I'm fairly sure that's in your history class. Which you need to pay attention to as much as your music."

"Yes, Papá."

Enrique considered just letting Miguel go back into his ponderings of ancient murders, but decided to bring him back to the present instead. "Which brings us to your homework. Are you caught up?"

"What?"

"Your school work, Miguel. This isn't a vacation. You're supposed to be doing your assignments."

"Um…" Miguel seemed to sense the purpose of the change, and offered his best winning smile. "I've been studying Zapotec, Papá. It's very important."

"Mm-hmm." Enrique reached over and ruffled his hair. "I'll help you over the weekend, how would that be? We'll do math and history and science."

Miguel gave an exaggerated groan of misery, but he was still smiling, and when he took a cup of hot chocolate from Tía Meche ,he let the subject drift to more current gossip about Luisa's cousins here and Carlos and Tina and Calles in the city. He was apparently up to date at least until the beginning of the week, because Calles and his mother played along on some internet game that Bridget had gotten him into, and he wanted to know whether or not Señora Calles had gone along with some dare he'd made about strategy. Enrique, who hadn't realized they had been playing the game, didn't have an answer.

Miguel eventually fell asleep at the table, and Enrique tucked him into the bed beside Nico, who rolled over happily and cuddled.

Over the weekend, they did manage to catch up Miguel's homework, which wasn't as far behind as Enrique had feared. Luisa went over the book he was supposed to be reading. Papá Isidro came back for lunch on Saturday, and was persuaded to stay. He and Tía Meche bickered their way through teaching Miguel a song in Zapotec. They managed a semi-stable internet connection for a little while, and Carlos listened to a few of the songs Miguel was working on, but they lost it before he could really give much feedback.

By Sunday night, Enrique relented and allowed Miguel to watch exactly half an hour of the national news. There was coverage of the trial, and of other discoveries in de la Cruz's home.

"So far," the pretty young reporter said, "there is no indication of the more outlandish theories that have been proposed. There are not, contrary to rumor, human remains anywhere on the property, or trophies of any other discernable murder. Several pieces of art, however, have been removed from the property, and there is rampant speculation that it came from the black market in stolen art. Experts from the National Museum of Anthropology are also currently examining artifacts…"

"Art theft," Papá Isidro muttered. "It wasn't enough to kill. No. He had to steal national treasures, too."

"He was a thief before he was a murderer," Luisa said.

Miguel watched this with distaste, but didn't say much about it. To Enrique's great annoyance, they showed a clip of the old woman again, as part of a montage on the subject. This, Miguel responded to with a physical wince.

Later, Enrique sat alone with him on the porch (well, alone except for Pepita, who was curled up on the porch rail). He had his guitar and was playing it lazily on the steps, not even really paying attention to it.

"Are you all right?" Enrique asked.

"If we win, we'll give all that stuff back to whoever really owns it, right?"

"Most of it doesn't have real owners anymore. But we'll give it to people who'll take proper care of it. We won't keep anything we have no more right to than he had."

"Good." He played a little bit more, then set the guitar down. "Papá, I've been thinking. About that woman who cried about 'Remember Me.' And the others."

"I know, but—"

"I know it's not my fault. But maybe there's something I can do. Maybe…" He sighed. "I wish I could talk to Papá Héctor. I wish I knew what he'd want to do about the music."

"Miguel…"

"But I can't. At least not that I can be sure about. So… I need to figure out the right thing. And… I want…" He bit his lip. "Papá, I want to give the music back."

"To the studio?"

"To the people." He looked over and bit his lip. "Can we find out how to give it back to them?"


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

_Y ahora veo,  
Veo la verdad-  
feo y frío y solo  
Ya lo veo,  
Veo las mentiras  
las palabras de un corazón frío_

_And I see now,  
I see the truth-  
ugly and cold and alone  
I see now,  
I see the lies  
the words from a heart cold as stone_

"No," Ruiz said flatly. "Absolutely not."

Imelda crossed her arms. "He's not going to get away into some cushy cell!"

"And I'm not going to spend eternity in a place that doesn't pay attention to the rule of law. You want some kind of medieval magical vengeance, not justice." He went around his desk and sat down, then looked at Héctor. "Talk sense."

"I don't know that I prefer your way," Héctor said. "This _isn't_ the land of the living and there are things here that don't make sense the same way."

"Really? Because I've been here for two years and I haven't seen a sign of anything above the law, except for the whims of the living. Do you really want the world to work on their whims?"

"I don't think it's a question of wanting it or not." Héctor, who had been leaning against the wall of Ruiz's office and occasionally pacing (he was still full of wild energy), sat down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "It's just the way it works. It's like saying that you don't want to live in a world where people fall if you drop them off a high place."

"In that case, it won't matter _what_ we do. If we're going to count on fate or whatever else you think judges here, then no matter what the trial says, he'll end up where you want him." Ruiz rubbed his head wearily. "Meanwhile, I intend to hold to what _I_ believe, which is that we should live in a world ruled by laws, not by popularity contests. I spent most of my adult life fighting for that, and I do not accept that the universe deems the law irrelevant."

"But shouldn't the law give a _worse_ punishment than you'd get if the law left you alone?" Imelda asked.

"Doña, I spent the last ten years of my career in the living world trying drug lords. They liked to take 'justice' into their own hands, and believe me, their prices were higher for people who broke their laws than I could ever impose on people who broke mine. Torture, murder… other things. And so we are clear, these aren't merely the same _kinds_ of people to whom you want to send your enemy. In many cases, they are quite literally the same people, controlled only by those lawmen whose own crimes were odious enough to take them there."

"De la Cruz will fit right in," Imelda muttered, but looked at least a little bit chagrined.

Héctor shifted uneasily in his chair. "Do they still… do you know anything about…?"

"About whether or not they still torture and kill one another in Odiados?" Ruiz shrugged. "Well, it's a bit late for killing, and torture is difficult, but I don't imagine it's easy to be happy when you think the person next door may stab you with your own ribs." He sighed. "All right, when something egregious happens, I try them, just as I'm trying de la Cruz. I've been there. It isn't what you think. Maybe once or twice a year, it's something more than needling each other, engaging in petty cruelties, and that's usually between people who had hated one another in life and carried it down there with them like grave goods." He sighed and looked out the window. "That is not the real punishment of Odiados, despite the stories that fly around. The real punishment is that people like that… they don't…"

"Love?" Héctor guessed.

"I don't know that they feel anything, not really. Not even rage. In life, I once saw a defendant walk out of a courtroom and shoot a witness. His face never changed. They have no joy. They don't even have real pain. They are in constant… nothingness. Bragging endlessly about their crimes and greedy for anything that strikes their fancy, but essentially empty shells. All of the people around them who might have once given them meaning are far out of reach. There's no chance of changing because they have no reason to change. It's a cold place, however hot they believe their tempers to be. They have what they call fun, but it's a joyless kind of fun, a cruel fun, always at someone else's expense. Each one of them firmly believes that he or she is the only one who matters… maybe the only one who is truly real. Which means that none of them matter to anyone but themselves." He looked up. "It is a profoundly horrible place, Doña."

"If that's all it is," Héctor said, "then I think Ernesto's been there for a long time without knowing it. I think he may have always been there, in his heart."

Ruiz gave him a narrow look, then shook his head sharply, sat up straight, and opened the folder containing Imelda's statement, which she would give tomorrow. "I am not here to discuss philosophy or morality. I'm here to make a legal case, which, given our evidence, is open and shut. The only reason I've put up as many witnesses as I have is to make sure that de la Cruz can't hide behind his fame. Now, you started out by saying that you knew something was wrong when you were unable to cross the marigold bridge…?"

And so he returned to the law. The trial had officially been going on for four days. The family was forbidden to speak of it at home, much to Héctor's relief. Victoria and Rosita had each testified that the video they'd shot was accurate to the events as they occurred. Coco had testified about Miguel's change in the land of the living. Ernesto's guards had testified about the cenote, and about having thrown other hapless guests into it if they said something impertinent, or tried to steal from the ofrenda room. Every detail had been verified several times. By the time Héctor told his story tomorrow afternoon, they would know about everything except the visit to Cheech, and then how Miguel had shouted with joy when he learned that Héctor was his great-great-grandfather. Neither of those things mattered to them.

But those were the things that Héctor kept coming back to. All of this business with Ernesto—it had to be done, but it wasn't the important part. Imelda wanted revenge (Ruiz wasn't wrong about that), and Ruiz wanted to grandstand about the majesty of the law. But for Héctor, everything that mattered was already real. He had his family back. He had his music back. He could even reach the land of the living in dreams if he really needed to, and there was a good possibility that the picture Coco had saved would let him make the crossing this year (he did still have misgivings about the fact that it would have to be taped together, that it was a damaged photograph; he didn't think he'd completely believe it would work until he actually crossed the bridge). Miguel had done _something_ in the land of the living, he'd proven something, and now the memories of the living would keep Héctor going for years. (In fact, he was almost frightened that he would last longer than his family, which he didn't want.)

This business of making Ernesto pay for his crimes… he supposed it was important for there to be justice. But he didn't personally care all that much. Ernesto had already lost what mattered to him—his reputation—and he had never bothered to create anything else that mattered.

Except that he _had_ fished Héctor out of the gutter when they were children. He'd defended Héctor in fights. He had started their career. He had loved Héctor's songs. Those things were true, weren't they?

_Sure. He loved the songs so much that he _killed you_ for them. He fished you out of the gutter because he knew you could double the amount of money he was making playing boring old standards. He started his career and you got pulled along until it was inconvenient. And didn't he start most of the fights that got you in trouble?_

All true.

But Héctor still took no pleasure in the idea of Ernesto being eternally punished. He recognized it as just. But what he wanted was to change what had happened, not to punish it. He wanted Ernesto to have been a real friend, a real brother. He wanted to have not been murdered, and his songs to have not been stolen at all. He wanted to raise his daughter and hold his grandchildren and love his wife as a husband _should_ love his wife. He wanted his hair to turn white.

And that was beyond the magic _or_ the law of this place. Nothing that happened to Ernesto now would change anything that had already happened, and somehow, spending all of his time on this (he'd had to leave the music in the play to Eduardo until the trial ended, and Ruiz thought it beneath the dignity of a crime victim to sing in the plaza every week) just served to remind him of that. If there was one thing Héctor knew, it was the theater, and all of this was theater. He and Imelda were sitting in a rehearsal now, and the big show was tomorrow. And everyone would go home feeling that they'd learned a valuable lesson about not murdering your best friend, and Héctor would still have died at age twenty-one and never seen his daughter grow up.

Until the trial, he felt like he'd been doing well at letting it go. He had the play, he had his family, he was even getting recognition for his music. He'd been the one to tell Imelda to let it go. But all of this talk about what sort of punishment should fall on Ernesto… he just wanted to storm off and scream "What does it matter?"

But maybe he was growing up at last after all, because he didn't storm off. He didn't scream or curse. He just let Imelda and Ruiz go through her testimony for the next morning, and then sat there while Ruiz walked him through his own. When he finished, he shook his head. "Let me warn you about one thing, Héctor: You have a spotty history with the truth, and the defense will try to impugn your testimony by bringing up every lie you've ever told. So if there's anything de la Cruz may have known about your time on the road about which you may have gilded the truth a bit, I suggest you come clean before you're forced to."

"What…"

"I don't mean to me. I don't care."

It took Héctor a minute to sort out what he was implying, then he glanced at Imelda, who was keeping her face unnaturally calm.

"Fine," he said. "I confess. I tore the sleeve of the jacket you embroidered for me, and I stitched it up pretty badly."

The expression became a slight smile.

"Also, I gave Coco candy during Lent."

"Mm-hmm."

"And I lost the engagement ring I meant to give you. That's why I didn't have one that night."

"Very cute," Ruiz said. "It's on your head if there's anything serious. Like I said, I don't care. What happened in your life is nothing but character references."

This trial wasn't about the distant past. That was in the land of the living where it belonged. This was about punishing Ernesto for what he'd done to Miguel.

And if it wasn't going to change Ernesto or convince him to never again try to murder a living child in the land of the dead, then what difference did that make?

It was very late when they finished, and Imelda drove them back in the shop's delivery truck, which was the family's only vehicle. It had apparently appeared down here when the family replaced it in the mid-1990s. She usually had Pepita to take her any distance, but they'd both agreed, given Ruiz's letter-of-the-law leanings, that it would be better to send Pepita back to the living family for a while. "Elena will remember her," Imelda had said, "and Miguel will be able to tell her that Pepita is my alebrije's name, too. They'll look after her." But she did know how to drive the truck, which was more than Héctor could say. He'd never had any reason to learn. Cars and trucks had existed when he died, and he'd ridden in them once or twice, but they'd still been a novelty. He'd traveled long distances by train, and short distances by foot. Undoubtedly, if he'd gone home, he'd probably have spent a good deal of time walking Imelda's shoe orders to their owners.

At any rate, the truck was an old junker, and it took her a few tries to make it start, but once she got it putting along, she said, "Héctor, you're angry."

"What?"

"Not at me. Not even at Ruiz."

"I'm not angry. I wish I were. It looks more productive."

She paused at the end of the tunnel that would let them out into the old city, tapping her finger bones on the wheel. "You were always afraid to get angry. Even when we fought, you didn't get angry."

"I was bigger than you." He looked out as the truck started moving again, pulling up onto one of the few cobbled streets that allowed vehicles. It would be a roundabout route to get back to the shop. "I sometimes saw men get angry at women. They'd start hitting. I knew women in Olvidados who ended up there because of men like that. I was bigger than you," he said again.

"Héctor…"

"When I first figured it out, I lost my temper. You heard the guards. I was trying to pull him apart."

"And who could blame you?"

"_I_ can blame me. I can especially blame me for doing it in front of Miguel. That's nothing a child should have seen."

"It was a fight, Héctor, and if there was anything uneven about it, it was on de la Cruz's side. He was a lot bigger than you, and not ill… at least not then." She managed not to sound happy about this, given the circumstances, but she hadn't been able to hide a certain amount of gloating in the courtroom when she'd seen Ernesto rubbing at sore bones and turning away food. He clearly had a bad case of memory poisoning now. But she didn't dwell on it. "So you found out he killed you, and it made you angry. It's all right to be angry about it. Swallowing it up like you do… that's not healthy."

"Is it healthy to scream about it?" He sighed. "I just want to go back to forgetting about it. I want to stop thinking about it."

She gave him a sideways glance, then put a deliberate tease in her voice. "Well then, I'll have to distract you tonight."

After a moment, he laughed, then reached over and took her free hand, at least until she had to put it back on the wheel to turn onto the side street beside the shop.

"Héctor… _is_ there anything that Ernesto will bring up when he tries to call you a liar?"

He thought about it. "I went to parties with him, Imelda. Some of them weren't very reputable. I didn't do anything there, but I didn't leave, either. There were fancy girls around. I spent time talking to them sometimes, when they weren't… otherwise occupied. I didn't…"

"I know that, Héctor."

"That's really the worst I can think of."

"All right ,then."

They sat up with the family until the small hours of the morning, playing cards and catching up on gossip, reading anything in the paper that didn't relate to them (though Coco left aside an article for when Héctor was feeling up to it; a recent arrival had reported on everything that had been found in Ernesto's house). When everyone had gone to bed, Imelda found many ways to keep him distracted.

He felt better in the morning, and when they arrived at the court, the dark mood was entirely gone. Ernesto was sitting in the defendant's chair as usual, looking uncomfortable. His hair had lost most of its processing, and his bones had gone a sick color in many places. It wasn't the gold of impending disappearance. It looked like he was under one of those ugly new fluorescent lights, and it was creating harsh, greenish shadows in every hollow of his body.

There were a few others here. A reporter from _Más Alla_, who'd been covering all along. A few older judges trying to learn the new rules. A young native girl with twin trenzas, wearing a red top and a black skirt that for some reason made Héctor think of the war, who was there for no reason Héctor could immediately see. And then there were always a few fans. Early on, they'd been Ernesto's fans. Now, they were mostly from Héctor's regular audience at the plaza.

Ruiz called Imelda to testify in front of the panel of judges. They were all old men, and none of them seemed to like this new style of hearing. They kept referring to the written statement during testimony and forgetting to give the defender time to cross-examine witnesses, causing Ernesto's lawyer, a dour-looking woman named Delgado, to have developed a habit of nearly jumping out of her seat every time Ruiz turned his back and headed back to the table.

So Ruiz had barely finished going over how Miguel had come to be separated from the family to seek out Ernesto—he was probably just ducking back for more notes—when she leapt up and ran halfway to the chair where Imelda was sitting and said, "And tell me, Señora Rivera, what exactly were your conditions for your great-great-grandson's return to the world of the living?"

Imelda frowned. "I told him that I didn't want him to play music."

"We've heard testimony from the clerk. Your words were, 'You go home my way, or no way.' Is that correct?"

"Yes…"

"In other words, you would have allowed the boy to die here if he didn't uphold your reputation."

"What?"

"Which is exactly what my client is on trial for."

"Objection!" Ruiz said. "This isn't relevant to the case against Señor de la Cruz. A hundred people could have tried to kill Miguel Rivera and it would have no bearing on whether or not de la Cruz did. Counsel is just trying to muddy the waters."

"I didn't try to kill Miguel!" Imelda protested. "That's insane."

"You would have kept him here by forcing him to agree to terms you knew he would not agree to in order to leave."

"I didn't throw him off a building!"

"I fail to see the distinction between methods."

"Did you have children, Señora?"

Delgado smiled faintly, obviously pleased with the direction this was going, which made Héctor uneasy. "No. No, I never had the pleasure."

"Sometimes, you have to teach them right from wrong, and a lot of times, they don't like it much. No, you can't have dessert until you've eaten something healthy, and if you don't eat something healthy, you don't get something sweet."

"Something sweet. Like being allowed to continue living, as long as you accept that you can't play a guitar."

"That's not what I meant!" Imelda looked at Ruiz. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"Nothing, and I ask for it to be stricken. Now, I believe this is still my witness."

Delgado went back to her chair, smirking.

Ruiz stepped up. "Had Miguel failed to obtain the blessing as he chose, would you have relented before sunrise, Señora?"

"Yes. I would have been fuming about it, but if Miguel had continued to be stubborn and willful, I wouldn't have allowed it to cost his life. I just didn't want him to make a mistake that I believed would cost him in the end. I was wrong, but I did believe it."

"Very well. So, once you realized he had left with your estranged husband…"

"I saw him leave with _someone_. I didn't recognize Héctor at first. If I had, I would have looked more closely at the stage in the plaza."

"Of course. You chose to summon an alebrije rather than guards to follow the boy because you did not, at the time, believe he was in danger from other inhabitants of the land of the dead? Despite the fact that, as you put it in your statement, 'I always knew de la Cruz was a madman.'"

"I had no idea he was looking for de la Cruz. I assumed he was looking for Héctor." She grimaced. "It never occurred to me that anyone would ever think I'd stoop low enough to have a child with someone like that." She jerked her chin at Ernesto. "If I'd thought he was headed for that tower, I'd have had every officer on this side of the bridge looking. But I didn't. Even angry with Héctor, I knew he wouldn't _hurt_ Miguel. I thought searching as a family would be sufficient. And it was. We found him."

Ruiz led her back to the basic narrative, bringing her through the search, and to finding Héctor and Miguel at the bottom of the cenote, unable to escape. He kept talking before Delgado could interrupt to make comments about vigilantism at the Spectacular, even bringing it up himself enough to dismiss it.

"You went to retrieve a photograph, which was not stolen, but borrowed, and you entered through legal means via your husband's friendship with the set designer. Had de la Cruz simply given you the photograph, there would have been no violent repercussions at all, is that accurate?"

In one bit they'd rehearsed for a while last night, Imelda gave a self-deprecating chuckle and said, "Well, I may have still been tempted to go for my chancla."

This got fond laughter from a few people in the gallery, and left Delgado without a hook.

Héctor watched Ernesto during most of it. He barely responded. He didn't look depressed or upset, let alone guilty. He just seemed bored as Imelda related their violent duet on stage, and his subsequent attack on Miguel.

The judges called a recess after Imelda's testimony, and Héctor stood up to stretch out a little bit. He would have liked very much to be outside, but there really wasn't an "outside" here, per se. He glanced over at the defense table. Ernesto was looking back at him this time. He turned away when he saw Héctor looking.

Out in the hallway, Ruiz was congratulating Imelda on not going off-script even when tempted. Héctor went down the hall a bit, to a little alcove. He had some paper with him and thought he might try to get a new song written down. Nothing came to him. He looked up and saw a few of the fans from the gallery (and the girl in red and black) talking to each other in hushed tones further down. He considered joining them to see what they had come for, but decided it would be a bad idea to do that right before testifying.

Instead, he went back to the courtroom and sat down at the prosecutor's table.

"Are you as bored as I am?" Ernesto asked from across the aisle. Héctor didn't answer. He _was_ bored, but he knew how this conversation had always ended up on the other side of the bridge. Ernesto shrugged. "We could grab the guitars and do a concert. That would make the papers."

Against his will, Héctor felt the corner of his mouth twitch. "I'm not playing with you anymore, Ernesto."

"Think about it. The trial is third page, best chance. If we went out in the hall right now and did the old act, on the other hand…"

Héctor sighed. "If you wanted a friend, maybe you shouldn't have poisoned the only one you actually had."

"You're still holding onto that, are you, old friend?"

"You literally stole my life, my family, my life's work, and a hundred years of my afterlife, so yes. And then you tried to murder Miguel rather than letting him make things right."

"What do you want me to do now?"

"I can't think of anything I want from you."

"Oh, come on. There must be something I can do to get you to call off the dogs. I could cover for you while you sneak off."

"Why am I even listening to you?" Héctor frowned. "And I can't sneak off. I start testifying in five minutes. And after that, you do. Are you going to tell the truth?"

"Are you?"

"That was the plan."

Ernesto snorted. "Well, there's a first time for everything."

Héctor tensed up a little bit, but Ruiz _had_ warned him that the defense would try this.

Ruiz called him up to the chair a few minutes later. He told the story as plainly as he could, fighting every impulse of a life in the arts to give things a twist here and there to keep the judges on the edges of their seats. Delgado did try to trip him up, and certainly called him on every lie he'd told that night (particularly lies to the legal authorities, referenced with pious glances up at the judges). She managed a small hit when she questioned why he had allowed Miguel to go fleeing into the night after the concert, when he had known the destination—in fact, Héctor _had_ given in to a fit of pique for a few minutes before trying to catch up with him at the mansion—but it was a _very_ small hit. She tried to impugn his character by sharing Ernesto's road stories, but she apparently had not chosen to outright lie, and the road stories did nothing but make Ernesto himself seem worse. Once it came to hearing Miguel's scream as he fell into the cenote, and his tears at losing his idol as well as his life, there was no defense to be had for Ernesto. Added to the tape from the Spectacular, Héctor couldn't imagine what Ernesto would say in his own defense.

"Señor de la Cruz," Ruiz said, as soon as he'd gotten Ernesto in the chair. "Given what we have seen and heard, I will give you the opportunity to simply confess. I doubt you'll take it, but I will give you the opportunity." Ernesto didn't respond. Ruiz shook his head. "So, what possible explanation do you have for throwing the child Miguel Rivera Saavedra into the constructed cenote on your property, and then later casting him from the roof of the Sunrise Stadium?"

"What would _you_ have done?" Ernesto asked. "What would any of you have done? I think we know what Señora Rivera would have done. She's shown it over and over."

"Move to strike," Ruiz said, and one of the judges gave a lazy wave in the direction of the clerk.

"All I'm saying," Ernesto said, "is that I was acting in self-defense. Héctor had convinced the child that I stole my music—"

"A point which has been subsequently proven," Ruiz interrupted.

"—and committed murder—"

"Also subsequently proven."

"—and there was real reason to believe that my afterlife was in danger. The water in the cenote was deep. There was no reason to believe that Miguel would have suffered final death. Or are we now considering banishment to the land we all share to be equivalent to murder?"

"Given that we share it due to death," Ruiz said blandly, "I believe that is the general idea. Go on."

"I believed, at that point, that Miguel was my own descendant. I assumed he would come to his senses before sunrise, but before I could check on him, the Rivera family had removed him from my property."

"As happens when you illegally imprison someone."

Ernesto bristled. "At most, had the boy died, I would have taken eighty years from his life in the land of the living and brought it here. The story he meant to spread—and has spread—may cost me centuries, and lead to a final death!"

"You're an entertainer, Señor de la Cruz. I hardly think you had centuries to look forward to."

"This is the age of movies. My image, my face, my voice… my memory will last as long as anyone watches me on a screen. And since they keep changing formats to more permanent forms, that could be an eternity."

"Then I hope you'll enjoy eternity in a cell," Ruiz said coldly. "Because you attempted to commit murder—for the second time—in order to keep your secrets."

Delgado tried to save face after this, getting Ernesto to talk about various charities he'd donated to, and how generous he was to Miguel before trying to kill him, but there was nothing he could say.

The testimony ended the active part of the trial, leaving it in the judges' hands to deliberate.

Héctor did his best to try and forget. He went back to rehearsals, which were going well. He played in the plaza. He played cards with Coco, and started to teach her the guitar, as he'd always wanted to. She had a knack for it, if not to Miguel's level. He played catch with Dante, who nearly always missed the balls he tossed into the air, but was wildly grateful for the attention.

It took the judges a week to hand down a guilty verdict.

Three days later, Ernesto escaped.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter Twenty-Three**

_October 5, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
We won the case._

_Papá says it's more like the studio decided that they didn't want to lose it, so they decided to say they were on our side all along. They're paying us for all the back copyright, with interest added. I don't know how much it is. They're keeping the house—like I wanted it!—but only if they make it into a museum of musical history in Mexico, and make a scholarship fund for children who want to study music. There was also a lot of money for "moral damages," which is what they call covering up a murder. We're giving that to the conservatory to help musicians who have problems with contracts and things. None of us wanted to keep blood money. We're doing well enough that we don't need that._

_The biggest thing is that we got control of the music. I don't really understand how copyright works. The simple part should have been over in 1971, fifty years after Papá Héctor died, but the studio did something, I don't know what, that made them own it longer so that people still had to pay them to play the songs. Now we have that, and the judge decided that, since Papá Héctor was just declared missing and has only been found dead this year, he's going to count it by copyright law _now_, which is a hundred more years. People are saying that's crazy, and I kind of think they're right._

_Anyway, Papá says I need to decide about the music, because Papá Héctor is my friend, and because I'm a musician. And I made a really, really hard decision. I hope you and Papá Héctor aren't angry at me. I just couldn't stand how sad everyone was. I know "Remember Me" was your song and it never ever should have been anything else. But it was. I had to do what I did. Please understand. Please!_

_I love you a lot._

_Miguel_

The family gathered in Mamá Coco's room around the big screen where Miguel usually had his lessons with Carlos. They could have watched this from the living room, where they usually did, but this felt right.

It was on Canal Once—not a big primetime show for most of the country, but Carlos had guessed that a lot of people would tune in. He'd very much wanted Miguel to be there, to perform the last song, but Miguel had refused several times. He didn't want this to look like he was trying to advance his own career. He couldn't verbalize it, but it was about letting go, letting things be what they were and what they needed to be. And, Enrique thought, he was afraid that, if he were there, he would keep changing his mind until the last minute had passed. As it was, he looked a little sick and pale at the magnitude of what he was doing.

Carlos was on the screen, but it wasn't a two-way feed this time. He was standing on one of the many stages at the National Conservatory, an orchestra spread out in front of him. They were wearing black and silver outfits that weren't quite mariachi uniforms, but somehow called them to mind. Carlos _was_ in full attire, though it was an understated suit. Luisa had embroidered it for him as a thank you for all he'd done for the family.

The last half hour had been a special about his discoveries over the year, with footage from the de la Cruz house and pictures of Papá Héctor and his songbook. Now, the feed was live, and reporters were speculating on what news he planned to pass on. Would they finally hear the songs as they were meant to be heard?

In fact, they would, but that wasn't the point of the exercise.

Miguel was standing between Enrique and Luisa, holding Coco. He glanced up at Enrique and said, "It's too late, right? I can't stop it now?"

"I think if you called Carlos right now and told him to just do the public songs properly, he'd do them, even if he had to answer his phone on television. Do you want your phone?"

Miguel hugged Coco more tightly, leaned into Luisa's arms, and shook his head. Pepita, who had been getting restless lately but was still around, wound around his feet then sat down in front of him, looking up at the screen for all the world as if she knew what was going on.

The camera panned the audience. Calles and Tina were sitting up front, both dressed formally. An older woman that Enrique took for Calles's mother was there as well. Professor Moreno stood near the stage door, his arms crossed, watching with professional interest. Some of the other students they'd spoken to the day they visited the Conservatory were in the orchestra. The girl who'd written the Montezuma opera was playing first violin. Carlos's guitar was beside him, leaning on a stand.

The screen split, showing two anchors in the Canal Once studio. The woman said, "And now, after a year of turmoil in the world of classical Mexican music, we have come, at last, full circle. For the first time, the songs of Héctor Rivera Esposito will be played with the full blessing of his family, in the way they were intended to be played. Conducting the orchestra is Carlos Navarro, chosen for this honor by his student, Miguel Rivera, who helped with the arrangements you will hear tonight. There will be solo performances from many of today's greatest singers…"

She went on to list several names that seemed to mean a great deal to Miguel, but which Enrique, raised without any grounding in music, didn't recognize.

Finally, the camera returned to the orchestra. Carlos raised his arms and silence fell in the auditorium. The family in Mamá Coco's room tensed, grabbing one another's hands.

They opened with "The World Is Mi Famila." It was a jaunty start after such a somber lead-up, but all of the soloists took turns singing. The song had turned out to have many more verses in Papá Héctor's songbook than de la Cruz had ever sung, words about watching strangers become friends in the embrace of music, words about the dance of life… and the final verse, which of course, de la Cruz had never sung: _And I leave you now tonight, después de la comedia, Knowing music is my language, and my world is mi familia_.

The next twenty minutes were songs that were increasingly less known. "Poco Loco" was in there, first in the form that de la Cruz had released, then as a duet as it had appeared on the record. There was a pretty ballad called "Candela, Candela," and one called "Roses and the Sea," that de la Cruz had sung while playing a pirate, but which Papá Héctor seemed to have meant to refer to a seaside picnic. The arrangement changed from a rather bombastic seafaring shanty to something sweeter and more delicate, though Enrique couldn't have said what the real difference was.

Miguel watched and listened, but Enrique knew his mind was on what was coming, and when it did, he leaned back further, now against Enrique, who put his arms around both of his children. Luisa slipped her arms around him as well.

Carlos appeared in a close-up. The lights on the stage went down, and he sat in a single spotlight, holding a piece of school notebook paper. (This was a theatrical touch; the actual letter was an e-mail—which Enrique and Mamá had helped Miguel write as nicely as he could—and Tina had copied it onto the lined paper, carefully leaving a fringe of torn tabs on the side.) He took a deep breath. "My friends," he said, "I'd like to now read you a letter from my student, Miguel Rivera. It came to me, because mine is the address he had, but it is written to all of you." He paused, then read aloud:

_To my family and my people,  
A lot of the songs you've heard tonight were never meant to be played outside of our family. My Papá Héctor wrote them for his wife and his daughter. If he'd lived, maybe he would have written more for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and given other songs to the world. He just wrote songs out of love._

_But the songs did get into the world. They became part of people's lives, just like they became part of mine, a long time before I knew they had anything to do with me. These are the songs I learned to play my guitar on, and the songs I dreamed to, and I know I'm not the only one. Music touches people's lives. It's in people's memories, and it means things to them beyond what it originally meant._

_So maybe once this song could have stayed between Papá Héctor and Mamá Coco, the way it was meant—as a lullaby, a special song, like the ones I sing my baby sister. But once it was in the world, it became its own thing, and people took it when they needed it most. To take it back now, to hold onto it and hide it, wouldn't be right. It was written with love, not greed and not fear._

_I talked to my family about this, and we all agree: These songs that you've spent your lives hearing don't belong to us. They belong to the people._

_And I'd like, especially, to give _this_ song back, sung the way it was meant to be sung._

_It was always meant to stay in the family._

_But maybe, because of Papá Héctor's music, the family is bigger than we ever thought._

_So my family wants to give this song back to the people, with love. Please treat it nicely. It means a lot to us, too._

_And please, don't let it become about murder. Keep it about love._

Miguel took a shaky breath.

Carlos picked up his guitar and played the soft opening notes of "Remember Me."

The family said nothing. They all held onto one another. Pepita jumped up on the counter and watched avidly.

Of course. She knew the song.

On television, the screen split again, and showed people reacting in the audience. Miguel had especially asked that the woman who had lost her husband be invited, and there she was, her hands to her heart, her eyes closed in prayer or remembrance. Other people held hands. Tina dabbed at her eyes, even though she'd heard the arrangement before. Calles's mother sat with her head bent forward, her eyes covered with one hand. Strangers put their hands to their throats and over their hearts, and somehow, for that moment, Enrique _did_ feel like they were all his family.

The program ended half an hour later, after a brief recap with the anchors. Carlos had refused an interview, and was sitting down with his people now. A legal expert explained that the family had turned down the legal decision to give them a century's copyright. He seemed baffled by the choice. Moreno talked about the legal fund at the Conservatory, and a woman from the studio (one of the same ones who had, only three weeks ago, all but called the family money-grubbing fame seekers) talked about how they would transform the de la Cruz mansion into a real museum. She did not mention that they were trying to find some college where they could sell the large collection of historical pornography. Miguel didn't know about it, and Enrique had worked through Tina to make them give the money to help beleaguered sex workers. A few graduate departments were bidding on it. Enrique guessed there were a few private collectors trying to get their hands on it as well. It was probably just as well that he hadn't gotten hold of it. It made his hands feel dirty thinking of it, and he'd have probably just thrown it all into a trash fire and been done with it, to hell with the fascinating subject of the history of the skin trade.

Finally, Berto reached over and turned off the television. "That's that," he said.

"It was…" Miguel bit his lip. "It was right… wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Rosa said regretfully. "It was right. But think of the money…"

"Rosa," Berto said, "let it go."

"I'm just kidding. Miguel was right." She sighed. "And I have math homework."

"Me, too," Miguel said. He looked pale and shaky, but less like he was sick than like he was just coming up from a sickness. He managed a smile. "Want to do it in the kitchen?"

"Too windy. Let's bring it inside."

And they disappeared without another word, Miguel still carrying Coco, though Enrique didn't think she'd be of much help with pre-Algebra. Pepita jumped down and followed them.

Abel took one twin under each arm and ran them out, spinning them like he was a helicopter as soon as they got into the courtyard. They squealed with delight.

"Is it over?" Mamá asked. "Is that the end?"

Papá put his arm over her shoulders. "I think so. At least this part of it."

"Rosa's not wrong about the money," Gloria sniffed. "I know that's not what it was about, but…"

Berto shook his head sharply. "Glorita, we've already spent a hundred years in the shadow of a murder. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to get out from under it. We couldn't do that if we spent the _next_ hundred years trying to keep the songs in a cage. Let them be free, and maybe we can be, too."

Gloria sighed and nodded. "The house, though. Can you see me living in that house?"

"Like a queen," Mamá said, then sniffed. "You're much too good for that man's house. Leave it down there with the movie people, where it belongs."

Luisa smiled. "Are we going to have no movies as a rule now, Mamá Elena?"

"Don't be silly," Mamá said. "I'd miss Iron-Man." She raised her hand and made a laser sound, then grinned. "I think Tony Stark needs to build an Iron Abuela suit, with a laser chancla."

"I think you just terrified every Mexican child in the world, cariña," Papá said, taking her hand.

"Child, nothing," Berto said. "_I'm_ terrified."

"No abuela needs a super suit," Luisa pointed out. "It would be overkill."

"Maybe I just want one."

Enrique hugged his mother, something he didn't remember the last time he'd done. She didn't joke often, and she was obviously doing it now to lighten the family mood, and he loved her for it.

They talked in the music room for a few more minutes, then drifted off. Mamá and Berto had an order to finish. Papá found Abel, and they started to work on the plans for the new addition. Gloria informed Luisa and Carmen that they were all going out for a drink together. Enrique guessed it was to gauge the mood of the town.

He went looking for Rosa and Miguel, who had set up in Coco's room. Coco was in her crib—along with Pepita, who was curled up among the stuffed animals—still awake and watching them with big eyes as they sat cross-legged on the floor, working on their homework at the too-low play table. Enrique checked their work and made a few corrections—surprisingly, only to Rosa's. Miguel's math grades had gone up exponentially this year, and he was now near the top of his class in the subject.

Miguel, meanwhile, had switched to his music notebooks, and was tweaking the Corazon song that he'd started months ago. Enrique hadn't seen him take it out since… really, since the funeral. He didn't comment.

"I have a part for you," Miguel said, pushing the notebook at Rosa. "Can you do it?"

She looked at it. "It's a little hard, but I could learn it. When do you want me to play it?"

"I thought we could play it for everyone on Día de los Muertos. Abel's part is really simple, so…"

"You know it's only a few weeks from now?"

"I know. I trust you. You can learn it."

Rosa traced the violin line with one finger. "Are we playing it in the plaza?"

"At home first. Maybe the plaza later, I don't know. I have another one for the plaza."

"You should ask my friend Yola to come to the plaza. She likes you."

Miguel blushed. "That's the one with the curly hair?"

"Yes. You've known her for five years, primo."

"I don't keep track of your friends."

But the blush was pretty deep, and Enrique guessed that Miguel was completely aware of the curly-haired girl. He sighed. It was probably too late to put this particular genie securely back in its bottle, if there had ever been a chance of such a thing. Life tended to move forward pretty relentlessly. And when it stopped doing that, well… that was the opposite of life, wasn't it?

He talked with the children for a while. The subject of the concert came up tentatively—Rosa had liked Tina's dress, and thought the orchestra sounded amazing—but Miguel steered the subject away. Enrique didn't push. Pepita slipped through the slats of the crib and jumped onto the table, making a nest in the papers. Miguel scratched her ears absently.

Rosa finished some homework questions for her science teacher, then went to her room to practice English with someone online. The way she said "someone" with a superior look at Miguel seemed to be a less-than-subtle hint that the someone in question was a redhead in Minnesota, but he didn't take the bait. She rolled her eyes hugely and said, "I'll tell her you said hi," then disappeared.

"How are you really feeling?" Enrique asked when she was gone.

Miguel thought about it. "I'm okay."

"You sure?"

He nodded. "I'm a little worried that Papá Héctor and Mamá Coco might not like it. But… I think it was right. I think it was all right." Enrique waited for him, not wanting to deliberately lead him down this path again. It went in little circles until it finally came back out at the same place. Miguel seemed to realize this, too, and shook his head, smiling. "It all sounded good. And I'm glad I didn't do it myself. That really would have made it look like I was trying to… I don't know. Own the songs. Make them mine instead of Papá Héctor's. That would have been as bad as what de la Cruz did."

"No, really not." Enrique ruffled his hair. "_Really_ not. But I respect your choice about that. And now you're back to work on your song."

"Just some things on the arrangement. I thought of them while I was working with Carlos. I thought it was done, Papá. I hadn't quit it."

"Oh."

He smiled, a real one. "You were worried about that?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks. But I thought it was done until I started thinking about violins. I noticed Rosa's part wasn't right. That's all. Sesasi—the one with the opera?—she was in the session. Did you see she was first violin? I didn't know she played both. I need to pick up some more instruments before I try for the Conservatory. Almost everybody plays more than one, even if they've got one main one. Carlos plays six instruments."

"Well, you already got the ocarina."

"Yeah. I started a little song for that. I'll show it to Papá Isidro on Día de los Muertos. He's trying to talk Tía Meche into coming down, too. They'll bring some pictures for the ofrenda, so everyone can come."

"That's good."

"I've been playing Rosa's violin a little. I think I'll save money for a violin next. And I was looking around the old house. If I get some of the old stuff cleaned out, there's room for a piano. It'll take a while to save up for one of those, though."

"Carlos said you could practice on an electronic keyboard."

"Those aren't cheap, at least not ones with enough octaves."

"Cheaper than pianos, and it's just possible you may acquire one in… oh, a couple of months."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. What else do you think you need to pick up?"

"Well… I can't learn _everything_, but I want to at least understand what everyone in the orchestra can do. Maybe a trumpet. At least I should be able to play everything in a mariachi band, right?"

"Of course."

"You're laughing at me."

"No, I'm not. I think it's a good goal."

Miguel smiled and went to Coco's crib. "I want to learn different kinds of singing, too. Carlos says not to do the screaming kinds that Abel likes, 'cause I'll burst a vocal cord or something, but opera's supposed to be the best voice training, even if it's not the way I really want to sing. Sesasi says it teaches breath control and range and lots of good stuff."

Enrique shook his head. "And here I am, thinking you're pretty good already."

"I could always be better." Miguel looked over his shoulder, then back at Coco. "And it's not just that, Papá. This is what I _like_. It makes me happy to learn this stuff. I guess I haven't really looked like that this year. But it's all really cool. I used to think I already knew everything from the de la Cruz movies. Because _he_ thought he knew everything about music, so I figured that's what it meant to be a musician. But it's not. There's always more stuff out there. I'll never run out of it. I mean, how great is that? I can do this 'til I'm a hundred and I'll never get bored."

"That's pretty great," Enrique said.

"What do you like?"

"What?"

"I mean, other than shoes and Mamá and Coco and me."

Enrique thought about it. "I don't know. I've been enjoying being Papá so much I hadn't thought about anything else for a while."

"What did you want to do when you were thirteen?"

"I wanted to ride a motorcycle from Tierra del Fuego to the Yukon."

"Wow!"

"Turns out there's a gap in the road. Sixty miles in Panama."

"Just sixty miles of all that?" Miguel shook his head. "Couldn't you put the motorcycle on a boat or something?"

"There's no ferry. They tried it for a while. It's pretty dangerous country to go overland in, too."

Miguel thought about it. "Well, maybe we could hire a boat in Guyana or something and put the motorcycles on it."

"What?"

"Yeah. After I finish school but before the conservatory. If I can make enough money for motorcycles, we could completely do that."

"The grown-up part of my brain is saying that it's a bad idea, and there's a lot of dangerous country to cross, not to mention a few hostile borders."

"And the rest of your brain?"

Enrique laughed. "Is trying to figure what we should pack."

Miguel's smile broadened. "Do you think Mamá would let us?"

"That may take some finessing. And it's not about asking permission when you're a grown-up. It's about making sure that no one's getting hurt. And it's about making sure we're not trying to have a holiday in a war zone. It's a lot calmer than it used to be in a lot of places, but there's still trouble out there."

"Well, we've got five years. I'm sure everything will calm down by then."

"Ah, yes. Peace on earth in five years."

"Through the power of ranchera music!" Miguel laughed and played an air guitar.

"That will work, I'm sure."

"So, it's a plan. I work on world peace, then ride a motorcycle to the Yukon with my papá. Maybe I'll play concerts along the way to keep the bikes gassed up." He poked a rattle through the slats of Coco's crib and played a little rhythm on it. She kicked her feet in time. Pepita jumped up onto the windowsill.

Enrique went to stand beside him. "That whole trip might be a little ambitious, and you might want to do other things for a few months instead."

"Maybe. But we should do _something_ when I'm a grown-up. I think you'd be fun to be a grown-up with."

Enrique reached into the crib and smoothed down Coco's hair while he worked around a large lump in his throat. "You know what?" he said finally. "_Something_ is an iron clad promise. We'll decide what when the time comes."

He put his arm around Miguel, who leaned into him. Coco reached out her little fists, and each of them took one through the slats. They stayed that way for a while, and, after a few minutes, Miguel began to sing.

Neither of them noticed when Pepita stood up and stretched her back, then, with a satisfied purr, jumped down and wandered off into the night. 


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter Twenty-Four**

_Te has ido para siempre  
Aunque éramos hermanos  
Estás en un camino que no seguiré  
Y ahora debo decir adiós_

_Oh, my friend and my brother,  
now you've gone from my sight  
You chose a path I won't follow  
And I must bid you goodnight._

If there was one iron-clad rule in the land of the dead as much as in the land of the living, it was this: No good thing ever followed a loud noise in the dead of night.

Even in the city, where nothing was ever entirely asleep, it was still true. And now, there was a second one in as many weeks.

The first noise, last Tuesday, had been the police, banging on the door and barging into the workshop after Ernesto escaped—ostensibly to make sure he hadn't come after Héctor again, but they weren't very subtle in making sure that Imelda's actions were accounted for all night, given that she had outright told Ruiz that she preferred the thought of Ernesto being punished more severely than the jail cell allowed. They had searched the workshop and all of the living quarters while the family stood around dully, wrapped in robes. Of course, there had been no trace of Ernesto. Héctor himself hadn't been able to find the way here when Imelda hadn't wanted him to be here. But the police had been a constant presence ever since, dropping by in the afternoon, following Héctor to the plaza, even sitting in the rehearsal space while Héctor tried to sort out the music for the play. They were convinced that Ernesto meant to make contact.

Héctor didn't know what he would do if—when—it happened.

He knew Imelda had several weapons in mind from the shoe shop—plaster lasts that she used to form the shoes on that would make fine blunt instruments, sharp and strong awls, scissors and utility knives. She had made a careful study of what could be used if Ernesto dared to make another attempt on the family. She also hoped that whoever had let him out (they did think someone must have broken in and unlocked the cell) had led him straight to Odiados, where she fantasized about what kind of punishment he would have.

Héctor was not averse to the idea of arming himself, though he thought, in this land, blunt instruments would be more useful than sharp ones. He had no intention of allowing himself to be hurt again, and now he was strong enough to fight back. But he didn't _want_ to fight.

And he didn't think Ernesto was interested in fighting, either. He didn't have much more of a thirst for vengeance than Héctor did, and he never had. He had killed for ambition, and maybe in a fit of pique over being denied something he wanted. He'd killed his father for being an impediment and a possible threat. He hadn't killed anyone in retribution for anything, at least not according to anything anyone had yet found. Héctor couldn't see him making a spectacle of himself by trying such a thing now. It wouldn't be useful to him.

"He'd do it for fun," Imelda said . "That's why he hurt Coco and me when we went to talk to him. He enjoys pain."

"I think you might be right," Héctor told her. "But he didn't come looking for you to do that. He didn't even show up in Santa Cecilia until he was afraid that you'd blow his cover story about the guitar and the songs. He could hurt anyone and he'd get the same enjoyment out of it. I don't think I'm that special."

She sighed. "Héctor, the worst thing about him is that you _were_ at least close to being that special to him. He still calls you his friend. He says you were his best friend when he killed you. And he killed you _anyway_."

"But not out of…" Héctor searched for a word and came up blank. "He didn't kill me because he couldn't control himself. He didn't come after me here once he realized no one would believe me."

"He did at first?" Imelda asked, frowning.

"He didn't talk to me when I tried to talk to him, but we both talked to some of the same people. I didn't want to name-drop, so I didn't say I knew him, but people said he was asking questions around, like, was anyone saying anything bad about him… schoolyard stuff. It was almost funny. But of course everyone loved him, and they all thought I was a liar about everything else—which was sort of true—so I didn't bother saying anything, and he stopped asking. He just left me alone."

"Your point being?"

"Ernesto's not out to get me. There's no profit in it for him."

"So you don't think he'll show up?"

"I… I'm not sure."

But Héctor _was_ sure. He was completely certain that he wasn't quits with Ernesto yet. He felt like there was something left undone, something he couldn't name, and wouldn't know until the moment arrived. And whatever it was, he had a feeling Imelda wouldn't like it.

So it wasn't entirely a surprise when the second noise came, deep in the night, a week later.

It was Pepita, swooping down from the sky with a screech, returning from the land of the living with fury in her voice. Héctor, who had been dozing beside Imelda, sat up straight. Imelda was even quicker. She had grabbed her robe and run outside while he was still looking for something to put on.

"You!" she screamed.

Héctor finally found his shirt and pulled it on, stepping into his pants even as he ran out after her.

Pepita was standing guard between Imelda and Ernesto de la Cruz. Ernesto's fine clothes were torn now, and his hair was in utter disarray, falling in jangled clumps around his skull. The faint greenish hue from the courtroom was pronounced now, and his face seemed to have thinned out, though that should have been impossible. His shoes were gone.

Imelda was facing Ernesto and Pepita was letting out a loud, threating growl. Dante came tumbling down out of the sky and landed in the shadow of her wing, snarling.

Behind Ernesto was his many-headed alebrije… also growling, pushing him forward.

And Héctor understood. Rage hadn't driven him here. His love of pain hadn't driven him here. His spirit guide had. Because it was Ernesto whose business wasn't finished.

"Stop this!" Héctor said, going up beside Pepita. "Pepita, please."

"Héctor, what are you doing?" Imelda asked, incredulous. "He's not here to be helpful."

"No." Héctor didn't turn his back on Ernesto. "I don't think he wanted to come here at all. His alebrije drove him here."

"What difference does that make?" Imelda asked.

Upstairs, Coco's light went on, and her window rattled up. "What's going on? Papá…"

"It's okay, mija."

"No, it's not."

Héctor smiled at her. "It will be." He looked at Ernesto. "How long have you been trying to get away from your spirit guide, Nesto?"

Ernesto made a warding gesture toward the dog, but just glared back at Héctor, not speaking.

"If it did drive you here, it's a waste of time," Imelda said. "We aren't giving you forgiveness." She glanced warily at Héctor. "Well, I'm not."

"It's not about getting forgiveness," Héctor guessed. "It's about asking for it."

"I'm not begging you for anything," Ernesto said at last. His voice rasped in the night, a rusty sawblade, so different from his usual croon that Héctor wouldn't have recognized it if he hadn't actually seen Ernesto speaking. "I will not."

Héctor took a few steps up, coming around Pepita. "Walk with me, Ernesto. It's the last chance. Your last chance."

"Héctor!" Imelda hissed.

"Dante, come with us," Héctor said.

Dante trotted up to his side, still growling at Ernesto, but now wagging his tail at the same time.

Héctor didn't reach out to Ernesto. He just ducked into an alley. Imelda started to follow, but he held up his hand. "It will be all right, mi amor. I'll come back and this time, you know I mean it. But this has to be done."

"Héctor, don't you…"

"Mamá!" Coco's voice came from the window, frantic. "Mamá, don't get angry. Papá's right."

Héctor turned around. The house was further away than it should have been, but he could see Coco clearly. She raised her hand to him.

He raised his own to her.

Then he turned around and kept walking into the alley, Dante at his side, sniffing for paths. A loud growl and a clatter of bone on cobbles told him that Ernesto was following.

Dante turned down a narrow path, and Héctor let him lead. There was no music in his head now. There wasn't really anything, just a sense of completion.

"Where are we going?" Ernesto asked. "Dammit, Héctor. Will you say something?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Anything. I don't care."

"How did you get out?"

"That girl who was sitting in court for the whole trial. The ugly Indian girl with that red shirt."

Héctor had no idea what to make of that, since he still had no idea who she was. "She helped you escape?"

"That's what I thought. She showed up in the middle of the night with two bandoliers over her shoulders, like an adelita. But she died before the war." Dante paused and waited for Ernesto to catch up, and for his alebrije to push up behind him like a rear guard. "At first I thought she was a fan, trying to help get me back to my house. I thought she might have a way around… _this_. Then she started talking about Diaz this and rurales that. Just ranting and ranting, like a crazy woman. Diaz and the rurales! Can you imagine? That was practically ancient history before… any of this."

"I remember when Diaz fell. So do you. You were fourteen. Not exactly ancient—it was only ten years before you killed me."

"A pretty busy ten years for everyone."

"But just ten years."

Ernesto gave an elaborate shrug as Dante led them through a dark archway into a back street that seemed to be going by warehouses. Héctor could see a glint of train tracks beyond it, and he knew perfectly well where Dante was bringing them. Ernesto hadn't recognized it yet. He just made an irritated sound—Héctor remembered it well; it was the sound he made whenever a woman was talking about anything other than how handsome he was—and kept talking. "Fine, I remember a little, but so what? And what did it have to do with anything? She said her lover was shot by the rurales, and never knew his baby, and then she was shot and never got to see _her_ baby grow up, and had to leave him to go die, so I suppose she felt some connection to those maudlin stories they wrote about you. I thought the shrew might have sent her—"

"_Imelda,_" Héctor corrected firmly. "If you call my wife another name, I will leave you alone here, just like before."

Ernesto's jaw snapped shut, and he looked up. Now, recognition came to him. "I left you here, not the other way around."

They had reached an unlit train platform. The only light came from the city above. There was an old train car, its door open. Héctor could see the crates stacked inside. He knew they had, at least once, been packed with cheap costumes for tourists.

Héctor looked up at the warehouses nearby and took a few steps up the platform, trying to judge where he was. "I fell… about here, didn't I? But I was still alive when you dragged me to the car. I must have been."

"Barely. You were dead weight. Not easy to get in there. I strained my back. It hurt for days."

Héctor felt a bizarre impulse to apologize, but stifled it. Instead, he went to the open door of the train car and sat down, glancing inside at a pile of cloth and thinking, _I died there_. It made him sad, but it didn't overwhelm him as it had earlier this year, imagining what had happened here. He sighed and looked back at the platform. Dante came over and sat beside him, tongue lolling out. Héctor scratched his head, then looked up at Ernesto. "I'll forgive you if you ask me to. I want this over with."

"Just like that."

"I think I've been thinking about it for a while. Forgiving, I mean, not necessarily forgiving _you._ It's been on my mind this year." He considered it. "But maybe it was about forgiving you, in the end. Maybe none of the rest mattered all that much to me, because I never blamed anyone else. Maybe that's why I keep coming back to talk to you. Maybe I hope you'll ask. Maybe I just don't want this hanging over me anymore."

Ernesto sat down beside him and sighed. "You're so weak, Héctor. You always were. Why wouldn't you just throw me to Odiados, if you think I deserve it?"

"I don't have any power over that one way or the other. I could just forgive you without you asking for it, and all it would do is let _me_ walk away clean of it. Your chance isn't in getting me to forgive you. It's in getting yourself to ask for it."

"But why would you even want to give me 'a chance'?" He rolled his eyes. "A chance for what? To grovel at your feet? You want me on my knees to you? Is that it?"

"No."

"Then why?"

"I don't know. But when your spirit guides lead you somewhere, there's a reason for it." He scratched Dante's ear again, and glanced at Ernesto's monster dog. "Maybe because if I don't do every last thing I can to set you right, it's my own little hell."

"There is no hell. Haven't you noticed?"

Héctor didn't answer that. "I have things I should have done differently in life, you know? I watched what you did to people. Over and over. And I said, 'It's just Ernesto.' I watched what you did to poor little Teresa, and I watched you brag about it. I never stopped you. Not even once, not for any of them. I was afraid you'd leave me behind. Maybe if I had, we wouldn't be here now. Maybe you never would have crossed that line. Maybe it's my penance to be the one who finally has to force you to look at yourself."

"You're babbling," Ernesto said.

"No, I'm not. I should have drawn the line with you a long time before I did, and it should have been about something other than my own property. How could I expect you to take me seriously about a handful of songs when I let you use real people the way you did without saying a word?"

"Let me?"

"Imelda was right about you. She was always right, and I always knew it in my heart. But I _was_ weak. I never made you look at what you were doing head on. I'm going to try now. You murdered me. You ruined Teresa and a dozen other girls in Santa Cecilia, and you laughed about it. I don't know what all you did later on, but I doubt anyone ever stopped you."

"Ah, so you've decided to be my confessor."

"Maybe. I don't know. But I'm going to try, at least. Maybe if someone had told you then, you wouldn't be here now. And I was supposed to be your friend. What you did to me was evil. What you did to those girls was evil."

Ernesto looked up at the sky and laughed. "I know you, Héctor. You're no saint."

"I don't have to be a saint to know that." He shook his head. "Ernesto, all you need to do right now is feel… anything about it. I just want you to admit it, and be sorry for it. Once."

"You're such an old woman!" He kicked at the dirt. "I did what I had to. Why didn't you just let me sing the damned songs? That's what they were there for."

"Why didn't you just use another song at the audition and pay me to write you more?" Héctor shook his head. "I wouldn't have told on you. I never did. I never wanted to be famous."

"Mierda. You think I don't know when you're doing your humble act?"

"Nesto—"

"No, seriously, if we're going to sit here in this place and try to talk truth, then talk it. Don't give me crap, chamaco. I know you, remember. I saw you on every stage you ever went out on. You love being up there. You love it when they clap and tell you how much they love your songs. You were _never_ happier than you were out there, and don't bother lying about that."

"I was happier sometimes," Héctor said. "But all right, yes. I like performing. There's a difference between that and the freak show you were in."

"_I_ had the freak show? I thought you were the one who got dragged around with a circus and dressed up like a little girl's dolly."

"And how was the studio different from the circus, except that you were alive when you let them do it to you?"

"I had everything," Ernesto said, leaning forward with a ghastly smile. "I could have anything I wanted, and anyone I wanted. And I did. The most beautiful women in the world would do anything I asked, just for the pleasure of my company. And the things I asked…" He closed his eyes in apparent ecstasy at the memory, then opened them. "I could buy anything. Own anything. Anyone. It was mine for the asking, and it wasn't the money. It was the thing you call the freak show. Even the richest man can never have what the famous man can get." He laughed. "Oh, Héctor. Once there were kings and princes. They never had as much power as I did. The famous… they are the real princes of the heavens. Only princes are expected to run the country or risk a peasant revolt. Movie stars don't need to worry about that."

Héctor sighed. "Was it worth what you did to get it?"

"A million times over." Ernesto smirked. "Did you really think I would say no? I wish you'd stayed out of the way. I wish it hadn't come to what it did. I liked playing with you. I'd have liked to have you around, though I doubt the shrew—"

Héctor stood up and started away.

"Fine!" Ernesto followed. "All right. I doubt _Imelda_ would have liked it much if you'd come to my parties." He came around into Héctor's path and stopped. "The point is, I didn't need you to be dead. I wouldn't have done it except that you, well—"

"Made you do it?" Héctor shook his head. "Nesto, is that really what you want to go with? Because I'm pretty sure this is your last chance. And I am giving you _every_ chance right now."

"A chance at what? You think I want to be like you? Too weak to go after what I really wanted? Or are you still trying to believe that you could ever have achieved what I did without being who I am?"

The lights in the station came on, sickly green, like the glow of Ernesto's bones. Dante drew close to Héctor, and Ernesto's alebrije snarled.

There was a shuffling sound in the shadows, then a woman with a black shawl around her head came up, smiling. "De la Cruz!" she croaked. "Oh, you're my favorite! I always hoped you'd come visit us. I was at one of your parties once, with my girls. Don't you remember me?"

"No idea," Ernesto said. "Go away."

"It's Delfina! From Rancho El Ángel! Well, it was before the Rancho, but I was in the business..."

"I have no idea who you are." Ernesto took Héctor's arm and pushed past the woman, who was laughing. "Cheap girls," he hissed.

Dante tugged at Héctor's wrist, and he slowed. "Ernesto, stop. We're crossing the line."

"Crossing what line?"

"The one you won't be able to get back over."

They'd gone between two warehouses and into a seedy looking neighborhood. There was a restaurant called Calva's, and in front of it, a pair of conquistadors in ruffed collars turned and gave them narrow looks. One of them had blonde hair.

"Oy, Alvarado," the other said, "looks like there's some new blood."

"Looks like cheap blood. We should tell Malinche we'll need a translator."

"I don't know," the first said. "One of them doesn't quite look like one of us. Maybe we send him to the Cubano for one of his spells. He's always looking for the ones who think they're better than us."

They laughed unpleasantly.

Héctor turned around, but Ernesto's alebrije was still pushing them in, and he couldn't quite tell which alley they'd just come from.

They kept walking.

Héctor had seen worse neighborhoods when it came to shelter and provisions. There were blocks of apartments with thick walls, and market stalls that he didn't look at very carefully. A yellow building rose up out of shadows, and it seemed familiar, a ghost copy of a house in Guanajuato that Héctor remembered seeing on tour. He didn't remember much, but there had been something about murder and black magic.

They passed a stall selling chains, and from somewhere close by, Héctor heard a shriek, followed by laughter.

Dante grabbed his wrist and whined desperately.

"It's all right, boy. You can get me out." He turned back to Ernesto, saying, "It's time for me to leave. I—"

But Ernesto was half a block further up.

"Ernesto!" Héctor called. "Ernesto! I'm leaving!"

Ernesto turned around, squinting and putting a hand to his ear, as though Héctor were much further away.

"Looks like your boyfriend's leaving you behind," a woman said from a booth. "You looking for company? I can give you company."

"No, thank you," Héctor said, with only a quick glance, but by the time he turned back, Ernesto had disappeared down a side street.

"You sure? I like the pretty light on your bones. We don't see it very much down here."

"I'm sure. I… I need to leave."

"Good luck! I need to leave, too. I don't belong here. Those men were all animals. They deserved what I gave them…"

Dante gave a big tug on Héctor's arm, and then ran not for the alleyways behind them, where Héctor's instincts told him to go, but deeper into Odiados.

He almost called the alebrije back, then remembered that Dante would be able to find his way better. Dante's chances of being lost were slim.

Héctor followed.

They ran down cobbled alleys and even dusty streets, between fortresses and military fencing and a hundred other things that Héctor had no good associations for. There were people, too, people who saw him, who saw Dante, who came out of the hiding spots and followed, crooning taunts sometimes, threats other times. He saw men in marion helmets and some carrying spears and others in modern clothes. He didn't see as many women, but once, he heard a high soprano voice from a window, crooning a lullaby that chilled him to his core.

Héctor tried not to hear it. He just followed Dante.

Finally, the crowd thinned, and somehow, they were back at the train platform. Someone jumped out of one of the cars and ran into the shadows, and then, at last, Héctor and Dante were alone, and standing beside the car he had died in. The lights went out, and now, there was once more just the soft light coming from the city Héctor had known for the last hundred years.

He didn't have a heart to race, or blood to pump through him in a rush of relief, yet somehow, he still felt those things. His legs were weak.

He sat down in the train car's open door, put his head in his hands, and waited for the shaking to pass.

Dante climbed up beside him and put his head on Héctor's shoulder.

"That's a good boy," Héctor said. "That's the best boy. You're the best alebrije ever. Don't tell Pepita I said so, but you are."

Dante licked his face, and Héctor put an arm over the dog's wing joints, hugging him tightly, feeling his heartbeat. It was a comforting sense, and, after what seemed like a long time, the shakiness passed.

He got down from the edge of the train car door and looked inside it. Faint city-light came through a window, falling on the pile of cloth in the back where he had died so long ago. He could almost see himself there, a boy with a shock of black hair, pale and clammy, his good clothes stripped away, lying there in his shirt and underwear, the picture, forgotten, between his shirt and his skin, soaked in sweat. He could no longer see, but maybe he'd heard Ernesto rifling through the other crates, looking for something to disguise him in.

Héctor reached over for the handle of the door and pulled it shut. He leaned against it for a minute.

Dante gave an urgent sort of bark.

Héctor turned away from the train and nodded. "Yes. Okay. It's time to go."

The city lights grew brighter as they left the station, coming up to the street outside of Héctor's home. Imelda and Coco were waiting for him, Pepita crouched between them. He opened his arms and they came to him, and he held them.

"I'm home," he said.

"And de la Cruz?" Coco asked.

"Tío Nesto made a different call."

Imelda nodded. "That's that, then."

"Yes," Héctor said. "That's that."

They went inside together, leaving the alebrijes to fly freely as they chose, and another day began.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter Twenty-Five**

_November 1, 2018__  
Dear Mamá Coco,  
I'll wrap this around the outside of your letters. We're putting the last things on the ofrenda now, though Abuelita hasn't decided which picture you should have yet. I guess you're in the old picture anyway, but, you know… we thought something more recent might be nice! I've got Coco here with me, and I'm going to introduce her to everyone later._

_I miss you a lot right now. I haven't thought about you being dead for a few months. I've been thinking of you sort of as being away on a trip. But now we're making a space for you on the ofrenda and I'm getting ready to leave these letters as an offering. I'll do it again next year. I'll try to make sure I always write something to you, though Mamá says I shouldn't over-promise because I might not be writing a lot of letters when I'm a grown-up. Which Papá says is coming way too soon._

_Anyway, I guess you'll see me when you come, but I won't see you. If you read this before I know, can you ask Dante to let me know when everyone is here?_

_Papá Isidro is coming, and he's bringing pictures from his ofrenda, so maybe you'll get to meet Mamá's people, too. Maybe you could all be friends!_

_I love you, and I hope you like the letters, and the dress Mamá fixed for you, and your dancing shoes. I fixed those myself! I'll see you later! Well, I guess 'You'll see me later' makes more sense. But I'll talk to you later._

_Love,  
Miguel  
_  
Enrique was almost finished with the tortillas, and Luisa was chopping vegetables at the table beside him. Gloria was in the kitchen, working on a mole, and Manny and Benny were running wildly around, as usual. Berto and Carmen were apparently working at cross-purposes, as she was spreading marigold petals and he was sweeping up. Rosa was hanging papel picado on the wires over the courtyard, and somewhere, beyond the closed workshop, they could hear the rise and fall of the tour guide's voice. They all knew her patter by heart now, because she came by three times a day with her groups of tourists, usually speaking Spanish, sometimes English (Enrique presumed it was the same patter, since her inflections were exactly the same). "…the home of the esteemed songwriter, Héctor Rivera…"

Gloria had made a very nice little display area, with Papá Héctor's guitar usually in place in the center, surrounded by the prettily framed letters. Tourists took pictures of these, and posted them around the world. Some of them had been passed around among people who had never been here and knew nothing about Mexican music, because Papá Héctor's story had spread like wildfire among people who felt like the world had treated them unfairly. Enrique had absolutely boggled when Papá Héctor's doodle of Mamá Coco—a little girl in trenzas—had surfaced as someone's profile picture in Surabaya, Indonesia. What a world, as Luisa had mused when he showed it to her.

At any rate, the family could hear the speech every time she came by. Gloria closed the work window when she heard them coming, and they mostly worked quietly behind the scenes until the groups passed, though once a week, Miguel would meet them and talk to them about the history of the music, and play a few bars on the guitar.

Miguel had played in the square earlier, this time, in honor of the day, doing Papá Héctor's songs (excluding "Remember Me"). He'd only gotten back about half an hour ago, so the tour guide must have waited to see him return the guitar.

Yesterday, he'd helped Papá Isidro and Mauricio clean the cemetery and clear all of the weeds, taking special care to look after the ones who seemed almost forgotten. He said he was looking for the grave of a man called "Chicharron," but since he didn't know the real name, he hadn't had any luck at all. But the three of them had done a great deal of backbreaking work to get things tidy.

Except for the de la Cruz crypt.

Everyone in town seemed quite content to let it be covered in graffiti. Someone had even hung a sign around the bust's neck that said, "Forget you." Papá Isidro had confided that the town was considering moving the body to someplace less prominent, so they wouldn't have to keep such a constant watch for desecration of the tomb. The lock on the front was now much sturdier than the one Mamá Coco had broken every year to tune the old guitar, and several windows had been replaced with plywood and steel strips.

But the rest of the cemetery was clean and festive-looking, and Miguel was proud to have been part of his grandfather's team for this. He'd also helped put up the wires for the papel picado, and set out little mementos for each of the ancestors he'd met ("Just to say hello"). He didn't currently have a task—though Luisa meant to have him help put out chairs and benches soon—and so was doting on Coco. He had her in the ofrenda room, and Enrique could hear him introducing her to the various photos.

Rosa hung the last banner and climbed down, looking pleased with the effect, then came over to the table and snagged a handful of chopped tomatoes. "It was a good show today," she said. "Do you think Papá Héctor is already here, and saw it?"

"I think we'll know," Luisa said. "Wouldn't Dante and Pepita come with them?"

"Oh, right!" Rosa grinned. "We'll completely know this year! I wonder if Tía Rosita will want to see me!"

"I'm sure she will," Enrique said. "Where's your big brother?"

"Practicing his accordion part for Miguel's song. Over in Mamá Coco's room. He doesn't want to play badly in front of Papá Héctor. Or Miguel."

No one said anything about this. Abel was applying himself, but was turning out to be a mediocre musician, for a shoemaker. Still, he wanted to give this gift. Enrique personally thought the gift of the music video was more up his alley, and had noticed Miguel giving it a rather professional-looking evaluation. Abel had finished it yesterday and shown it to the family. It was a beautiful piece of animation, and he'd done very well at cleaning up the scratches and distortion in the old recording, though he said there was only so much that could be done about the slightly tinny quality of the sound.

Mamá slipped into the kitchen and showed something to Gloria, then came to the table. She was holding a picture of Mamá Coco, in an oval-shaped wooden frame. It had been taken only a week before she died, but she'd looked better in those last days—right up until her final sickness—than she had in years. The music had brought the light back to her eyes, and she'd sat in her wheelchair, telling story after story about the old days. She always had listeners. Papá had snapped this picture of her while she was telling Mamá the exciting tale of a time Mamá Imelda had chased robbers away from the shop, brandishing an awl like a sword. She didn't have the energy to act it out, but she'd had a soft, fond smile on her face.

"Is this the right one?" Mamá asked.

"It's lovely," Luisa said. "I think she'll like it very much."

"Are you sure it shouldn't be when she was younger? Maybe with Papá?"

"I think this has her whole life in it," Enrique said.

"Do you think I should add a newer one of Mamá Imelda, too? Maybe the one where she was holding Berto?"

Enrique considered it. "I think Mamá Coco was the one to pick out the picture that meant the most to her mother, just like you did."

"And what will you and Berto and Gloria choose for me?"

"I think there are a lot of pictures still to be taken," he said.

Mamá sighed. "Well, promise you won't fight about it. Maybe I should choose one before I go."

Enrique laughed. "Yes, Mamá. That would be the most fitting thing I could think of—you laying down the law on the subject."

She kissed his head, then went back to the kitchen to consult with Gloria about the mole. A moment later, she went into the ofrenda room. Enrique looked over his shoulder and saw her put an arm around Miguel, who leaned against her in a mutual comforting gesture.

He smiled and turned back to his tortillas.

Guests started to arrive at around four o'clock. That was new this year. Mamá always threw open the gate for the dead, but the family's odd practices had kept most of the living in-laws and cousins away before. Now, Luisa's grandparents were trundling up the road in their RV, Papá Isidro and Tía Meche were headed down from the mountain (possibly with Prima Leti and her children), and Carmen's three maiden aunts were in the kitchen in the new house already, bickering about pan de muerto recipes. Gezana Avalos, the plaza stage manager, was also some degree of relation to Carmen, and she was planning on dropping by as soon as she could get away from work. ("I never miss a chance to hear Miguel Rivera play!" she had crooned. "Especially now that he's actually got a guitar.")

But the first to arrive were Carlos, Tina, and Calles, who must have left at the crack of dawn to get in this early with the holiday traffic.

They'd taken Calles's little sports car, and they all seemed very glad to get out and stretch their legs. When Tina stretched her arms up, her blouse pulled tight against her belly and Enrique realized that their family was about to get a little bigger. Carlos grinned manically when he saw that this had been noticed.

Calles got out and looked around eagerly. "Thanks for the invitation," he said. "I don't honestly usually do this. I just never… I didn't really… I usually ignore the whole thing." He shrugged awkwardly and pulled two photos out of his shirt pocket. One showed a laughing young man in a Mexican military uniform. The other was a pale, broad-faced redhead with freckles, who wore a little cap and leaned against a yellow cab. "My father and my grandfather," he said. "Do you think they could find their way to Oaxaca from Mexico City and Chicago?"

"Can't hurt to try," Enrique said. "Come on, let's put them in the ofrenda room with our family. Is there anything they liked that you'd like to put out for them?"

Calles seemed very nervous about putting the unframed photos on a little bit of spare table (along with a pineapple for his father and a pair of fuzzy dice for his grandfather), but Miguel arrived—now in his freshly pressed charro suit—and helped him get them propped up, spreading some marigold petals around them and putting a candle in between.

"Papá Isidro and Tía Meche are bringing their people, too," he said. "So everyone will get to meet someone new. I hope your abuelo can speak Spanish."

"I never thought about that," Calles said. "I guess he drove a cab in the city in the '80s. He probably has enough of the basics. If, I mean…"

"They'll be here," Miguel said.

Calles pulled out his phone. "Come on," he said. "Selfie." He pulled Enrique and Miguel into frame, all of them squatting down so the men looked out over their heads, then snapped the picture and sent it to his mother and his cousins.

Tina and Carlos had been buttonholed by Berto, who was extolling the joys of fatherhood, and Carmen, who appeared to be giving Tina a litany of pregnancy advice. As Enrique and Calles came outside, the RV rolled up the side street and there was a great production of getting Luisa's grandparents settled in. By the time it was over, Papá Isidro and Tía Meche were walking up from his little place. Leti and the children had actually managed to come along, and Luisa ran out to greet her cousin with a joyful hug. Loli and Luchi came running to find Miguel, who introduced them to Manny and Benny. Gezana showed up and immediately fell to talking to Luisa's abuelos (something about their travels, as far as Enrique could tell), and the maiden aunts had appeared from the kitchen—still bickering with each other—to talk to the newcomers. Papá's older brother, Tío Danilo, had already started flirting with one of them out on the sidewalk. Papá Isidro distracted the oldest one, who was wearing a shawl wrapped dramatically around her head, and was talking to her about some kind of church business.

It was all a little overwhelming.

Enrique wandered through this unprecedented crowd, greeting people in a dazed way, trying to remember their degrees of kinship. He finally found Miguel, who was standing by the main gate, staring down the marigold path toward the cemetery.

"They'll get here," Enrique said. "Maybe they're here already."

"I feel like I should know," Miguel told him.

"Maybe you will."

"I'll know for sure when Dante and Pepita come."

Enrique nodded. "Maybe you should go ahead and start playing. I think a lot of people are waiting to hear you."

"You don't think I should wait for them?" He nodded down the path.

"I think," Enrique said, "that it would be a very joyful thing for them to approach their house and hear music coming from it, and laughing, and to see dancing feet. After so long, don't you think that would be a nice thing for them to find when they get here?"

Miguel considered this, then smiled. "Yeah! I think that's the best idea ever!" He ran over to the little door that led to the "museum," grabbed the guitar from the wall, and came back. "Love you, Papá," he said cheerfully as he passed, and a moment later, he was strolling among the guests, taking requests and playing beautifully. People danced and sang along with the tunes they knew. Miguel looked happy, grounded, and connected to the people here with him as much as to the ones he might be imagining. Watching him, Enrique thought of him a year ago, withdrawn and angry the night before his voyage, nervous and isolated in the weeks afterward. He'd grown during the year, not just physically. He would never be a little boy again, but for the first time, it didn't make Enrique sad to think of it. Instead, his heart was huge with pride in the man his son was becoming, and love for him that was beyond anything he would ever be capable of expressing.

He found his way to Luisa, who handed him the baby. They stood together, watching Miguel fondly as he wound through the crowd.

Finally, Miguel sat down on the edge of the well, and asked if people wanted to hear his new song. He nodded to Rosa and Abel, who had gotten their instruments out without Enrique's notice, and said that his primos would be playing, too.

"This song is for my family," he said. "Maybe I'll play it in public later, but now, it's for everyone here. And it's especially for my Papá Héctor. I'm not sure if he's here yet or not, but this is an offering. I hope you like it!"

He smiled nervously and waited for the quiet. Into it, Rosa played a soft, high note on the violin, and then Miguel came in on the guitar, starting with a story about a dream.

Somewhere in the middle of the second verse, just as Miguel's music swelled into the crescendo of the chorus and he got up to stroll through the crowd, Dante and Pepita came dancing into the courtyard together, and Enrique could feel everyone now, like the crowd had just become vastly larger. But instead of feeling claustrophobic, he felt elated and complete.

Berto appeared beside him, grinning broadly as Miguel jumped up onto the well, treating it like his own personal little stage, engaging his audience. "Think he needs to be up higher?" Berto asked.

Enrique laughed, and the two of them swept Miguel up until his head was nearly brushing the banners overhead, and somewhere in the village, fireworks burst into the sky, framing him. He didn't miss a single beat, despite the unplanned choreography. He hit the top of the last chorus from the highest perch Berto and Enrique could provide him, and as the crowd applauded him, handed the guitar down to Carlos so that it wouldn't be damaged as they let him down.

"Thanks," he said, laughing. "But maybe some warning?"

"Oh, what fun is that?" Berto asked, ruffling his hair. "You need to be able to improvise. At least that's what I've heard."

"And," Carlos said, handing the guitar back, "you _should_ have planned that. It was a great bit."

"It's like when I was playing with…" Miguel bit his lip. "Well, the first time I did Poco Loco. I got picked up in the middle of that, too. Go with the flow, I guess."

Carlos gave him an incredulous look. "Tomorrow," he said, "you are telling me a story. Denny wants to hear it, too. It will be long and detailed."

Miguel looked at Enrique, who said, "It's up to you."

"Ask again in the morning," Miguel said.

Carlos rolled his eyes, but didn't push. Abel had hooked up a large-screen television, and was showing his music video, which caught a lot of attention. Enrique imagined Mamá Imelda and Papá Héctor standing nearby, watching it and (hopefully) enjoying it, but maybe thinking it was a bit more magical than a marigold bridge.

Most of the local guests left at around ten, and Coco and the twins were put to bed (Coco had been sleeping on various shoulders for two hours already, and Manny and Benny were yawning out their protests about being big enough to stay up). Miguel took time out to sing Coco her lullaby, and again, Enrique imagined his bisabuelos following along, listening and watching. Certainly, Miguel seemed to feel something. He kept smiling and glancing around, as if he'd sensed some movement out of the corner of his eye, though he had assured Enrique that he still didn't see anything in the real world. Pepita stayed close through this, then hopped into the crib to sleep in her favorite spot beside the baby.

The remaining family, along with their friends from the city (Carlos and Tina would be sleeping in a spare room; Calles had brought a sleeping bag and said he meant to sleep outside), went back out into the courtyard, taking various benches and chairs. Miguel, back in jeans and his white shirt, was sitting on the ground, leaning on the well, Rosa chattering beside him and taking occasional pictures. ("I'm wondering if maybe I can catch a ghost at the right angle," she said wisely.) It was their first year staying up with the family. It was Enrique's first year actually believing, in his heart, that their conversations about the year's events were being heard by anyone he couldn't see.

Mamá began, as she always did, by lifting a drink, waving it around vaguely at the shadows, and saying, "Salud."

Everyone raised a glass in turn and returned the toast.

There was nothing formal about the family conversation. There wasn't even any effort to act like they were filling in their invisible guests. But this had been Mamá's way for as long as Enrique could remember.

"So, how was your trip down from the city?" Papá asked Calles. "Must have been an early start to beat the tourists."

Carlos snorted. "Denny drives like a maniac. We started at the normal time, but I swear we were airborne sometimes."

"Did you learn to drive in the Air Force?" Miguel asked.

"No. I learned to drive in the city. It's harder than flying a jet. But it turns out to be a much handier skill as a detective."

"I never thought we were the kind of people to hire a detective," Papá said. "But it turns out to be a good thing we did…"

And that was the bridge. As simple as that. They rehashed most of the year's events, looking at them from new angles. Enrique hadn't realized that Mamá's DNA tests were turning up quite as many cousins—albeit distant ones—as there were, or that Rosa had narrowed down her research on hacendados to a handful whose fates she hadn't been able to ascertain. Papá, whose own grandfather had also been an orphan, had found out that he had been housed in the same dormitories as Oscar and Felipe when they were small children, though there was no way to find out whether or not they'd known one another at all well. "It's no wonder the whole town's full of Riveras," he said. "There were thirty kids in there, half of them named after the same padre."

Miguel brought out his ocarina and played it a little bit. Berto and Carmen hadn't heard much about the visit to San Pedro. Carlos asked to give it a try, and, like Miguel, picked it up very quickly. His book was set to hit the shelves next week, and Tina hoped it would pay enough to cover a few months of maternity leave. "Or maybe a few years," she said. "I'd kind of like to stay home a little bit."

"Hey!" Carlos said. "So would I! I was counting on you to make money."

"I recommend a home-based business," Berto said. "It solves all kinds of problems. But you need a bigger family to keep the baby watched over."

"They've got me!" Calles said. "I'll watch the baby."

"Someone needs to actually work," Mamá reminded them. "And running a business is work. We don't keep up with orders from Australia and Finland by arguing over who gets to play with the baby."

"We have orders from Finland?" Miguel asked.

"Yes," Luisa told him. "You want to take an interest in the business?"

"Yes, I do! No one told me we had orders from Finland."

"You made quite the show of not being interested last year at this time," Papá reminded him.

"I'm a Rivera," Miguel said primly, striking a superior kind of pose, "and a Rivera is…?"

"A shoemaker through and through!" the family responded, then laughed together.

"I think we may have to revise that," Mamá said. "I think it's just possible that you won't be a shoemaker."

"I'm still going to make my _own_ shoes," he said. "Every year. And I'll teach my children to do it, too."

"I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself, Miguel," Enrique said.

"I saw his last try," Abel said. "I think he better find someone else to teach them."

Miguel made a face at him, then smiled. "What about you? Are you staying in the workshop, or are you going to keep making music videos?"

"I'm staying," Abel said. "But I think I'll fix up our website and make some fun videos for it. And put in a decent order system. It's silly that Tía Gloria still has to take everything over the phone."

"I like the phone!" Gloria said. "It's a human touch."

"It's keeping the orders down."

"And we're barely keeping up with the orders we're getting," Mamá reminded him. "And there will be more after Carlos's book comes out. Unless we want to turn ourselves into a sweatshop, there's a limit to how much we can do."

"Plus, I'm starting the dance shoe line," Berto said. "Flamenco, tap, ballet, and I'm going to go ahead and make those Irish ones, too. Those soft ones are fun to make. All the lacing." He held up the ghillies he'd made last week.

There was a lull, then Mamá said, "I liked your song, Miguel. It was pretty. Will you teach me to sing it? I like the idea of singing together."

Miguel smiled at her, then got up and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I'll teach you, Mamá Elena. I'll make shoes, and you'll sing. I think we'll be okay."

"I think," Mamá said, "that we're okay already." She looped her arm around his waist. They were more or less the same height now, and they leaned their heads against each other.

There was more talk. Enrique didn't feel a need to add much to it. He was calm and at ease, and as the talk wound down, he could feel the invisible guests, and the threads that stitched them together, as fine and comfortable as a good shoe, as vibrant and alive as a melody on the wind.

They finally drifted off to bed at midnight. Miguel was yawning ostentatiously, and Enrique guessed he planned to sneak out again later, if the alebrijes were still around. Enrique had no plans to stop him.

He followed Luisa back to their room, where they changed into nightclothes (for the first time, it occurred to Enrique to be self-conscious… were there ghosts watching them change?) then lay down together in the gentle autumn night.

"Your mother's right," Luisa said. "We're okay already, you know."

"I know."

"And Miguel is okay. He made it through."

"I know that, too. We have a good son," he said. "I'm not worried about him anymore."

"And how are you? Still worried that you'll be old someday?"

Enrique thought about it. "No. I'm looking forward to being old someday with you. And middle-aged. And… the rest of whatever I have left of being young. Forty-four is still young, right?"

"Absolutely."

"So we have plenty of life left. And who knows what will come after that?"

Luisa smiled and cuddled into him.

He fell asleep holding her, a deep and restful sleep in which he visited with all his family, and was held to their hearts.

He didn't even hear it when Dante scratched on Miguel's door forty minutes later, or when Miguel opened it and headed back out into the night.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter Twenty-Six**

_Escuché música en las voces  
Canciones que canté en la plaza  
Sabía cuando te conocí  
Que encontré el camino a casa_

_I heard music in voices around me,  
Like melodies that I'd once known  
And I knew in the moment I met you  
That at last, I had found the road home_

Until the border guard said, "Enjoy your visit, Héctor," he'd convinced himself that it wouldn't happen, that the photo the family had patched together with tape wouldn't work, that he would, once again, be left at the foot of the bridge, watching everyone else go by.

It hadn't helped that he'd arrived separately. He hadn't meant to, but Ceci had been feeling off, and he'd spent the night before in her workshop, trying without much success to convince her that she wasn't fading. Her last great-grandchild had arrived during the year, and her great-great-grandchildren, raised in a modern home in Puebla and now scattered around the country in small neat houses with small neat families, apparently didn't spare her much thought. "I should have gone over last year," she'd lamented. "Or the year before, or some time, instead of sewing all night. Maybe I could have made them think of me. One of them is even a fashion designer. Maybe he could have remembered me."

She seemed to be all right for now, and one of her grandsons was going to get her ready and get her across the bridge, but it had delayed Héctor. He'd sent a message with Pepita to meet him at the bridge, and by the time he got there, the lines were quite long. He could see Imelda and the twins quite a distance ahead of him while he waited, chatting until their absolutely routine approval came through, and they disappeared out of the building. Coco and Julio and the girls must have gone through even earlier. Héctor would have liked company in line. Imelda rolling her eyes at his fears would have been a welcome distraction from them. Instead, he got more and more nervous, more certain that he should be in a costume or hidden away in someone's basket, instead of waiting in this line like it was no big deal.

Then he was there, standing in front of the scanner, and he was just himself, just Héctor, and he felt quite naked when the flash went off.

And then he was through.

He hadn't realized that he was twisting his hat in his hands until he went out into the sunlight. He put it back on as Imelda reached out to him with a question in her eyes.

He answered it with a kiss.

"Papá?"

He turned to find Coco coming over, back in her bedroom slippers, with a shawl over her shoulders. Imelda hoped they'd leave her something better to wear, now that they'd had a year to not see her in her nightgown every day. Héctor didn't care. She could wear a sackcloth and she'd still be one of his two favorite sights, especially today. Today, she had saved him again. He grabbed her as he had when he'd first seen her here, and spun her around and kissed her cheekbones. She laughed.

The rest of the family came over (Héctor wasn't sure what they'd been doing), and, hand in hand, they went to the marigold bridge.

It held his weight.

Above them, Pepita and Dante zoomed through the sky, chasing one another across the border between worlds, as the spirits moved on.

They crested the bridge as the sun set, and, for the first time in a hundred years, Héctor looked down into Santa Cecilia, spread out in the shadows of the mountains and glittering with light. He'd known somewhere in his mind that they certainly would have run electricity out here, and he'd imagined a few street lamps, maybe some soft lights in the windows, but the whole town was lit up with a bright, cheerful glow. The cemetery, at the base of the bridge, was crowded with visiting families, the graves lit by candles. There was a large mausoleum toward the back of it, but it alone was in shadow.

"De la Cruz's," Imelda said bitterly, catching his gaze. "At least no one's there now. Before…" She shuddered.

"Where are we buried?" he asked.

"Over there," Imelda told him, pointing toward the base of a tree, around which complete strangers were clustered.

"Are those…?"

"No," Coco said, coming up and looking confused. "I don't know those people. And Elena likes to keep the family at home around the ofrenda."

"Then who are they?"

Imelda, who had taken a few steps toward the grave, grinned. "Your fans, by the looks of it. You've even got a tour guide." She pointed to a woman who was chattering at the group, all of whom had little flat things in their hands that had to be cameras, since they pointed at the graves and flashed, but they looked nothing like anything Héctor would think of as a camera. From one of the little devices, a version of "The World Is Mi Familia" seemed to be playing.

"I can't wait to find out what they've been up to," Julio said. "This is a big change."

They set off together, Coco and Héctor slowly, because they were trying to follow the paths, which were full of the living. It wouldn't hurt anyone if they passed through one another, but it seemed rude. Everyone else, with years of practice under their belts, was fanning out through the gravestones. Coco and Héctor looked at each other sheepishly and joined them. There was a bit of a scrum at the gate, both for the living going into the cemetery and the dead heading for their homes, but once they were through it, the streets, though crowded, were easy enough to pass. Héctor noticed all the differences—the electric lights, the cars that seemed to be everywhere, the canned music coming from open windows, even the size of the town's population. He only remembered this many people being here when he and Ernesto had convinced several Carpas to come and do a show one year, and people had flocked in from neighboring villages. Now, it seemed almost like a city.

But he mostly noticed what hadn't changed. The cobbled streets. The old houses. The plaza and the church and even the graveyard seemed like _his_ Santa Cecilia. They passed the old theater where he and Imelda had once sung together. It was mostly unchanged on the outside, but an ugly electric sign had replaced the old marquee, and it was advertising a movie whose poster showed a man who appeared to have had tar thrown at his face. Another poster showed a friendly looking monster holding a boy up over its head.

They were close to home now, just…

Imelda stopped, her hands rising to her face, and everyone drew up beside her.

There was a lovely marigold-colored glow up the street, around a gate that was beside what used to be their home. People were milling in the street, and laughing, and from inside, Héctor could hear Miguel singing.

"It's an offering," Julio said, leaning toward Coco. "You see the glow? They're offering us…. the song… the house…"

"Is it always an offering?" she asked.

"The gate usually is. It's from Elena, isn't it?" Imelda asked. "But the song. The music. Héctor, the house is full of music. It's our perfect house again."

Héctor felt his eyes go wide. "This is _all_ our house?"

"Yes! Of course."

"You built all of this?"

She gave a humble shrug.

He shook his head. "I married really well."

She laughed, then took his hand and led him through the gate. Everyone seemed surprised by the number of people here. It wasn't just the living, either. Héctor could see other spirits, many of them crowded into a tiny room beyond the well. ("The ofrenda room," Oscar explained. "We'll visit later, when they've gone.") Miguel was wearing a red and gold charro suit, strolling among the guests with a wide smile, singing the song Héctor had heard in his head. A girl with a violin and a boy with an accordion were nearby, providing backup, and Héctor knew at once that these were his great-great-grandchildren as well. The girl, though she wore glasses, had something of Imelda in her face, and the boy looked a bit like an overgrown version of Julio.

The source of the marigold light wasn't just the music. The guitar itself was glowing, like a tiny fire was burning around Miguel's hands. As Héctor danced with Imelda, she whispered, "The guitar is an offering, too, mi amor. You should join him."

"How…?"

"Just touch it. Grasp it. It will come to you."

Feeling strange, Héctor went up beside Miguel, forming his arms around the boy's, and then suddenly, the guitar was back, _his_ guitar, his wedding present from Imelda. And he knew the song, because it also came to him. He started to play.

Two men picked Miguel up and put him on their shoulders as he finished the song. One of them, Héctor was quite sure, was Enrique, who he'd dreamed of. When Miguel finished the long last note, he handed the guitar down to a young man with black hair and dark eyes, taking it back only when he was safe on the ground. There was a great deal of applause, and Miguel looked completely happy.

It was impossible to keep up with all the names that flew at him as the night went on. Héctor learned the names of Elena's children and their wives, and of his great-great-grandchildren, though no one could tell him who was Benny and who was Manny. Coco spent most of the evening hovering near Elena, who seemed to sense her. Imelda wandered through the workshop, looking at the innovations. Héctor himself was bemused by what appeared to be a museum set up in his own honor, which he found when Miguel returned the guitar to a set of pegs that had been made for it and smiled.

"Are you here?" he asked into the night. "Dante acts like you're here."

"I'm here," Héctor said, but Miguel just smiled around. He seemed to know he wasn't alone, but not to have any real sense of where Héctor was.

Later, Héctor thought. After he sleeps, we can talk.

Rosita had fallen into a conversation with a spirit from her own family, a brother who had died in the war. He claimed that he always meant to make the trek across town to visit her and Julio, but wasn't time funny when there was so much of it ahead of you?

The twins were talking to someone from Miguel's mother's family, and Victoria was arguing with a man in a military uniform, who seemed quite frustrated with her. He kept gesturing at another man who looked military, who had red hair. No one seemed to know who he was.

"My grandson," someone said, his accent identifying him as a foreigner long before Héctor turned around to see him examining his bones with disbelieving eyes. "The boy," he said. "That's my grandson. I don't know why he's here, or I am." He looked up. "Cal Shaughnessy. Pleased to meet you."

"Héctor Rivera. You're…" He frowned. "You're not Mexican."

"Just by in-laws," Shaughnessy said.

"But you look like us here! It_ is_ the same!" Héctor indicated his bones.

"Just here. I wasn't before. I was young and… had skin." He shook his head. "The wife always thinks she's supposed to have wings. She says she gets them when she visits her parents. I stay away from her parents. I'll tell her she should be happy for skin." He looked around. "Then again, we don't get to visit the kids like this. I wouldn't mind dropping in and getting presents at home!"

"Are you family?"

"No idea. Maybe Denny up and married a Mexican girl this year. Which I guess he would, eventually." Shaughnessy gave a confused frown. "I just don't know which one. Any of yours the right age?"

Héctor didn't think so. "How did you get here? How does your wife go see her parents?"

Shaughnessy seemed utterly lost at this turn of the conversation, and Héctor got the idea that people came and went from wherever he was to wherever his in-laws were with relative ease, but he couldn't seem to express the method. After a while, he moved on to keep an eye on his grandson, and Héctor checked in on Abel, who was playing a kind of short movie on a very large screen. It was like a cartoon, but there were no lines, and it looked almost like moving photographs. In it, Héctor, Imelda, and Coco stepped out of their family picture and danced among the living. First, they spun around Elena, who was clearly filmed from life, her frown fading into a great smile as she danced with her husband and grandfather. Then they attended Berto's wedding and kissed the bride's cheeks. They were at Abel's christening, then Gloria's quinceañera. After that was Enrique's wedding, then Rosa's christening, then Miguel's. There, Abel let the story linger, as Héctor touched Miguel's hands, and a flowing music staff wrapped around both of them. It remained, ghostly, around the family ever after. Then they were at Rosa's first Communion, and Imelda was straightening her veil, and after that, they attended Abel's graduation. In the end, the whole family was dancing together, living and dead with their arms around each other, wrapped in the same staff that had passed from Héctor to Miguel.

Like so much else, it had a marigold glow to it, but Héctor couldn't even imagine how he might take it with him. Instead, he watched it three times as Abel played it for new people, and was very disappointed when Abel was called away to do something else.

"I watched it twice earlier," Imelda said, appearing beside him. "It's like magic. I wanted to really be at all of those things. And now I feel like I was!"

"I feel like…" Héctor searched for the words. "I feel like _they_ feel like we were."

"Our family is alive, Héctor. They're _really_ alive."

"Aren't they usually?"

She smiled. "Not like this. This is what it should have been. This is what Miguel gave back to us. Our blessings."

Héctor looked across the courtyard, where Coco was now looking over Miguel's shoulder at a little glowing device. "And the biggest blessing of all—"

"—is our little Coco," Imelda finished the old incantation. She smiled and squeezed his hand. "And it's not just what Miguel gave back to us. It's what you've given us. We have our heart back."

Héctor kissed her.

The guests thinned out later on, and Miguel carried his baby sister to her crib. Héctor followed and played along with the lullaby Miguel was singing. It was one of his own creation, but the chords were easy enough to pick up, and the guitars—being the exact same instrument—were perfectly tuned to one another.

Later, the family settled into a long talk about the previous year. Héctor sat down on the ground beside Miguel for this, glad of the boy's company. He learned that Shaughnessy's grandson was a detective who'd found his body, and the thin young man to whom Miguel had given the guitar was his music teacher. Most of the stories he heard, he'd pieced together from scraps that had gotten to the land of the dead, but to hear it all together, to know how much effort the family had put in, was a different thing. Héctor felt profoundly loved, and it made him feel much stronger than the intoxicating waves of fame had.

The time slipped by quickly, and Héctor wasn't ready when the family went off to bed. He wanted to listen to more talk, to hear them talk about _anything_, really. He just wanted to be with them.

Miguel got up and made a show of stretching, but he looked down at Héctor, almost directly. "Guess I better get to sleep then," he said.

Unfortunately, Héctor didn't believe that he _did_ mean to sleep. Sleeping was when they could have a real, two-way conversation. But he thought it meant that Miguel wasn't tired of being together, either, which was a kindness. Coco followed him and gave him a kiss goodnight as soon as he stayed still long enough for it, and he smiled.

Everyone else dropped off to their bedrooms, and Rosita said, "Let's go to the ofrenda now. I think the guests are gone. And I want my presents." She grinned broadly. "It's like birthdays," she explained. "They leave little things, but the little things mean big things. You'll see."

Héctor followed her in. Now that the room was empty, he could see the rows of photos on the ofrenda. His own photo was at the top, with Imelda and Coco. Their offerings were still glowing. Apparently, Julio's people had already gone; theirs were dormant now. Rosita found ribbons and sweets by her photo, and Victoria happily grabbed a new pair of shoes (which seemed to emerge from a single shoe) and some fresh fruit. The twins discovered a present from Berto's twin boys, a crayon drawing of the four of them playing together. Abel had also left them a drawing of the addition he planned for the hacienda. Imelda had new hair ribbons, the year's ledger from the shop, a magazine of new shoe styles, and photos of the baby.

But Héctor and Coco easily had the biggest collections of offerings, because they'd never had anything before.

"My dress!" Coco cooed, taking the blue and yellow dress, which was folded under her picture, from the shelf. "And my dancing shoes…" She grinned, pulling two pairs of dancing shoes from a single, recently repaired one. "Oh, Julio, we'll go dancing, won't we? Now that I can be beautiful for you again."

"You're always beautiful."

She giggled. "Oh, and letters! Papá, look, Miguel has left me letters! What a good idea! Can I read them? Will they come over?"

"I don't know," Victoria said. "No one ever left us letters."

Coco opened the one that was wrapped around the bundle, then smiled broadly. "It's here. It's all here. Oh, I'll be reading these for a while. Papá, I think you have one, too."

Héctor looked up at his own spot. There was a letter clipped to an envelope. He took it, leaving something behind that felt like a shell, though he suspected it would look no different to the living. He decided to read it later, to spread out the discovery. Miguel had also left him more songs. There was a basket of food with a note on the handle that said, _Dear Papá Héctor, no one knew what your favorite foods were, so we all left you some of our favorites, and we hope you'll get to know us by trying them. Your granddaughter, Elena._

"Héctor!" Imelda called. "Look at this! Look at mine!"

He looked over. Along with the ribbons and ledgers, someone had left her the record they'd once made together, with the silly, flirtatious notes they'd written to one another. Imelda smiled at it sadly. "I would have destroyed it," she said. "Teresa saved it. I should have saved her instead of screaming at her."

"I think Teresa saved herself without our help," Héctor said.

They had all settled into showing one another their gifts when the light in the kitchen went on, and Dante came prancing into the room. He looked over his shoulder.

Héctor followed his gaze.

Miguel was standing there, as Héctor had expected he would be, looking blindly into the crowded room, a little anxious. He was wearing an old tee shirt and ragged shorts and carrying a pillow and blanket, obviously planning to sleep here. Everyone fell silent.

"Are they here, Dante?" Miguel asked. "Are they really?"

Dante gave a sharp bark and bounded over to Héctor, who patted him on the head.

Miguel looked at a spot a few inches to Héctor's left. "Right there? Is that Papá Héctor?"

Another bark.

"And Mamá Coco, where is Mamá Coco?"

Dante trotted over to Coco and ran around her. In the living world, it must have looked like he was chasing his tail.

"Mamá Imelda?"

Pepita was not about to allow Dante to present her mistress, so she jumped down from the windowsill and wound herself around Imelda's ankles.

Between them, the alebrijes were able to show Miguel essentially where everyone was, and lead him to the green bench (he asked nervously if anyone was there, but seemed to take Dante's prodding as an assurance that he wouldn't be sitting on anybody).

"I wish I could see everyone and hear everyone," he said. "I'd love to hear your gossip." He laughed self-consciously. "I guess I'm supposed to want important answers to big questions, but mostly I want to know if Papá Héctor and Mamá Imelda are back together, and if Mamá Coco is finally getting to dance, and if Oscar and Felipe have all of their bones sorted out. I wouldn't mind a hug from Tía Rosita, either, or knowing what Tía Victoria is reading about. It turns out she was right about the vitamins."

Rosita sat beside him and gave him a hug. Her arms went right through him, but he smiled.

"I think I felt that! Was that you, Tía Rosita?"

Dante barked happily.

"I guess it's just that I miss you as people. Not just as… whatever I'm supposed to think of you as. Papá Julio, I'm glad you were there to guide me in the right direction last year. I need some guiding sometimes."

Julio smiled.

"And Mamá Coco, I miss telling you everything every day. Most of those letters are just the stupid things I'd come home from school to say. I hope you're okay with that."

"I always was before," Coco said.

Miguel looked around self-consciously. "Um, Mamá Imelda? I'm really sorry I was rude last year. I'm learning to make shoes. I'm not really good at it, but if you want…" He held his feet up. He wore a pair of perfectly decent, if uninspired sandals, and they started to glow. "Just so that you know, I… I admire you. I love what you built, and I'm really proud of it."

Miguel sat quietly for a few minutes, scratching behind Dante's ears and leaning vaguely toward Rosita. Héctor went to her and gave her an imploring look. She smiled and moved away. He took her place.

Miguel seemed to feel the change. He smiled.

Héctor smiled back. It had never occurred to him, in all of his attempts to cross the bridge, that the living might not even be sure he was there. But there was _something_. Miguel could tell that someone else was beside him.

Someone he loved.

Héctor felt the love coming off of him in powerful, painful waves. He wondered if that was what Miguel could feel coming from him.

Whatever he felt, he seemed to find it comforting. He sighed like he was setting down a heavy load, and smiled. "I just wanted to make sure I came and talked to everyone. Everyone here knows I was telling the truth. But believing me and understanding are different. I want to really see you. Don't worry or anything, I'm not in a hurry to get there. But it sure would be nice to sing with Papá Héctor, and fly on Pepita with Mamá Imelda. And just…" He shrugged. "It was nice to meet everyone. I guess that's all I really wanted to say." He yawned now, for real. "Do you mind if I stay in here?" he asked. "Just tonight."

There was no way to answer, and he didn't wait. He put the pillow on the floor, wrapped himself in the blanket, and lay down. It only took him a few minutes to go to sleep. Whether it was magic or exhaustion, Héctor didn't know.

Héctor sat down on the floor beside him, and looked up at his family. "I'm going to try to talk to him," he said. "Maybe it won't work."

"It will," Imelda said. "You know it will. Go on."

Héctor nodded, then reached out one hand and touched Miguel's forehead.

Suddenly, the ofrenda room was gone. The hacienda was gone. They weren't in the land of the dead, either. They were in Mariachi Plaza, on the bandstand. Miguel was back in his suit, sitting on the rail, plucking out a tune on the strings of their guitar.

Héctor looked down at himself. He wasn't in his rags. He was in the suit he'd worn for the family photograph, and he was whole.

"Well," he said, looking at his hands, with the old scars on his fingers, and the callouses he'd built up over the years. "This is new."

Miguel looked up and smiled broadly, setting the guitar down, then jumping down and flinging himself into Héctor's arms. "You're here. I hoped you could come. I dreamed about you before."

"I know. It's easier this side of the bridge."

"Then we have to do this every year."

"I think there may be years you don't want me popping into your dreams."

"Not on Día de Muertos. I'll always want to check in with you. How are you? Are you okay? How's Mamá Imelda? Is Mamá Coco there, is she feeling better?"

Héctor smoothed his hair down, then sat down on a bench that appeared for him. Miguel sat across from him. "Everyone is fine," he said. "It's good to be back with Mamá Imelda, who sends you her great love, and Coco is feeling well now. We've had many long talks, and even a few adventures."

"Adventures? What adventures?"

Héctor filled him in on what had become of Ernesto, how he and Imelda and Coco had faced off with him, after he was pulled out from under the bell. Miguel listened avidly, and, sounding much like Imelda, declared that he was glad when Héctor told him that Odiados seemed to have swallowed him.

"So that's been our year," he said. "And we've missed you, too. You're still pretty famous down there. I should have brought you a bobble-head. I'll remember next year."

"There are bobble-heads?"

"And tee shirts."

Miguel shook his head in amazement. "And you're a musician again."

"I wrote songs for a play about Vikings. It opens next week. The reviews are pretty good from the critics we let in for the dress rehearsal."

"Vikings."

"It's mostly about what happens when people who have different afterlives fall in love."

"And what does happen? I mean, not that I have any reason to know…"

Héctor raised his eyebrows—his actual eyebrows, which felt strange on his face after all this time—and said, "Oho! Is there something we might be missing here?"

Miguel gave him a sheepish grin and shrugged. He was quiet for a minute, then took a deep breath and said, "I need to know—the music. I gave the music back to the people. Even 'Remember Me.' I had to. They were crying and…"

"It's all right," Héctor said. "That song's been out in the world too long to hold onto it."

"I don't sing it, though. People ask me, but I don't."

"You can if you want to," Héctor said.

"I kept wondering if it was what you'd want. If it was what you'd do. I was so afraid you'd hate me."

"Never." Héctor thought about it and looked up at the sun, which was baking the plaza around them. "It's not what I would have done," he finally said.

Miguel looked crestfallen. "It's… it's not?"

"No. But it was the right thing to do. Miguel—you did the right thing, even when you were afraid of what I'd say. That took courage that I never had. I'm very proud of you."

"Really?"

"Really. And if anything like that comes up again, you go ahead and do what seems right to you. You gave me your song tonight. I give you all of mine. Whatever you decide is right, that's what's right. And no matter what you decide, I will love you for ever and ever. You know that, right?"

"And you'll still be there when I get there. I'll make sure no one forgets."

"I'll be there." Héctor smiled. "The way it's been the last few months, I think I may be there when _your_ great-great grandchildren show up after long, healthy lives. Do me a favor and make sure they remember everyone else, too, okay?"

"Promise." Miguel bit his lip. "I don't know what else I want to say, but I don't want you to go."

"Then I won't. I have until almost sunrise. Want to learn the new songs from the play?"

Miguel nodded eagerly, and they worked together, laughing and singing and playing, until some unknown time later, Héctor felt a hand on his shoulder.

"I have to go now," he said.

Miguel looked down and nodded. "I know."

"But I'll see you next year. I promise. And I'll want to hear new songs."

"You will. Love you, Papá Héctor."

"Love you too, mijo."

On an impulse, Héctor tossed Miguel a kiss. It flew through the air, visible, and landed on his cheek, spreading a kind of soft light around him. Miguel smiled, and the world became too bright to see.

A moment later, Héctor was back in the ofrenda room, Miguel sleeping peacefully on the floor beside him. It was time to go back.

The family gathered their offerings in leather bags Imelda had made, and quietly made their way out into the pre-dawn silence of Santa Cecilia. They weren't the last of the spirits. Many were moving quietly out of houses, laden down with offerings, both happy and melancholy at the same time. Héctor had never felt like quite as much of a ghost. It wasn't a terrible feeling, just a sense that his time of belonging in the world had ended for the year.

It would come again.

He stepped onto the marigold bridge, walking beside Imelda, headed back to their own world. In silence, the family walked to the crest of the bridge, and there, at the top, Héctor looked back toward Santa Cecilia, toward the remaining lights in the cemetery, toward the plaza with its bandstand glowing in the starlight.

He had finally made it home, and he wanted to hold on for just a moment longer, but the petals beneath his feet were beginning to shift and lose their strength.

_I know the way now,_ he reminded himself. _We found the way together. And I will come home again._

Imelda tugged his hand gently, and he turned away from Santa Cecilia for now, letting it fall behind the curve of the bridge, as the first light of dawn chased them home.

**The End**


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